Michael Frayn, FRSL (; born 8 September 1933) is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off[ "Michael Frayn British author and translator", Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 6 August 2017.] and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy.
Frayn's novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong and Spies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. He has also written philosophical works, such as The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of the Universe (2006).
Early life
Frayn was born at
Mill Hill, north London (then in
Middlesex), to Thomas Allen Frayn, an
asbestos salesman from a working-class family of
blacksmiths,
locksmiths and servants and his wife Violet Alice (née Lawson). Violet was the daughter of a failed
palliasse merchant; having studied as a violinist at the Royal Academy of Music, she worked as a shop assistant and occasional clothes model at
Harrods. After the slump in asbestos prices, Frayn's sister supported the family by also working at Harrods, as a children's hairdresser.
[ My Father's Fortune, A Life by Michael Frayn, Faber and Faber, 2010, pp. 12–14, 28–29, 225.][ 2009 Interview in The Observer.]
Frayn grew up in Ewell, Surrey, and was educated at Kingston Grammar School. Following two years of National Service, during which he learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists, Frayn read Moral Sciences (Philosophy) at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, graduating in 1957. He then worked as a reporter and columnist for The Guardian and The Observer, where he established a reputation as a satire and comic writer, and began publishing his plays and novels.
Theatre work
Frayn's play
Copenhagen deals with a historical event, a 1941 meeting between the Danish physicist
Niels Bohr and his protégé, the German Werner Heisenberg, when Denmark is under German occupation, and Heisenberg is—maybe?—working on the development of an
atomic bomb. Frayn was attracted to the topic because it seemed to 'encapsulate something about the difficulty of knowing why people do what they do and
there is a parallel between that and the impossibility that Heisenberg established in physics, about ever knowing everything about the behaviour of physical objects'.
The play explores various possibilities.
Frayn's more recent play Democracy ran successfully in London (the National Theatre, 2003-4 and West End transfer), Copenhagen and on Broadway theatre (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 2004-5); it dramatised the story of the German chancellor Willy Brandt and his personal assistant, the East German spy Günter Guillaume. Five years later, again at the National Theatre, it was followed by Afterlife, a biographical drama of the life of the great Austrian impresario Max Reinhardt, director of the Salzburg Festival, which opened at the Lyttelton Theatre in June 2008, starring Roger Allam as Reinhardt.[Fiona Maddocks, "The History Play Man; Daring: Frayn's Drama Slips in and out of Rhyming Couplets 'To Blur the Distinction between Theatre and Life Just as Rheinhardt Did'", The Evening Standard, 3 June 2008.]
Frayn's other original plays include two evenings of short plays, The Two of Us and Alarms and Excursions, the philosophical comedies Alphabetical Order, Benefactors, Clouds, Make and Break and Here, and the farces Donkeys' Years, Balmoral (also known as Liberty Hall), and Noises Off, which critic Frank Rich wrote in his book The Hot Seat "is, was, and probably always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime."
Novels
Frayn's novels include
Headlong (shortlisted for the 1999
Booker Prize),
The Tin Men (won the 1966 Somerset Maugham Award),
The Russian Interpreter (1967, Hawthornden Prize),
Towards the End of the Morning,
Sweet Dreams,
A Landing on the Sun,
A Very Private Life,
Now You Know and
Skios (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2012). His novel
Spies was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won the
Whitbread Prize for Fiction in 2002.
Non-fiction
Frayn has written a book about philosophy,
Constructions, and a book of his own philosophy,
The Human Touch.
Frayn's columns for The Guardian and The Observer (collected in At Bay in Gear Street, The Day of the Dog, The Book of Fub and On the Outskirts) are models of the comic essay; in the 1980s a number of them were adapted and performed for BBC Radio 4 by Martin Jarvis.
Frayn has also written screenplays for the films Clockwise, starring John Cleese, First and Last starring Tom Wilkinson, Birthday, Jamie on a Flying Visit, and the TV series Making Faces, starring Eleanor Bron.
Translation
Frayn learned Russian during his period of National Service. Frayn is now considered to be Britain's finest translator of
Anton Chekhov[Donald Rayfield, "Review: Chekhov: Four Plays and Three Jokes by Sharon Marie - adapting the four major plays", Translation and Literature
Vol. 20, No. 3, Translating Russia, 1890–1935 (Autumn 2011), pp. 408–410?] (
The Seagull,
Uncle Vanya,
Three Sisters and
The Cherry Orchard), including an early untitled work, which he titled
Wild Honey (other translations of the work have called it
Platonov or
Don Juan in the Russian Manner). From four of Chekhov's short stories and four of his one-act plays Frayn devised
The Sneeze (originally performed on the West End by
Rowan Atkinson).
Frayn has also translated Yuri Trifonov's play Exchange, Leo Tolstoy's The Fruits of Enlightenment, and Jean Anouilh's Number One.
Television
In 1980, Frayn presented the Australian journey of the
BBC television series
Great Railway Journeys of the World. His journey took him from
Sydney to Perth on the
Indian Pacific, with side visits to the Lithgow Zig Zag and a journey on
The Ghan's old route from Marree to
Alice Springs shortly before the opening of the new line from Tarcoola to
Alice Springs.
Personal life
Frayn has three daughters with his first wife, Gillian Palmer:
Rebecca Frayn, a documentary film maker, writer and actress; Susanna; and Jenny, a television producer.
Frayn and his second wife,
Claire Tomalin, a biographer and literary journalist, live in Petersham, London.
Awards
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1966: Somerset Maugham Award, for The Tin Men
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1975: London Evening Standard Award (Best Comedy), for Alphabetical Order
-
1976: Laurence Olivier Award (Comedy of the Year), for Donkeys' Years
-
1980: London Evening Standard Award (Best Comedy), for Make and Break
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1982: London Evening Standard Award (Best Comedy), for Noises Off
[
]
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1982: Laurence Olivier Award (Comedy of the Year), for Noises Off
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1984: London Evening Standard Award (Best Play), for Benefactors
[
]
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1986: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award (Best Foreign Play), for Benefactors
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1990: International Emmy Awards (Best Drama), for First and Last (BBC)
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1991: Sunday Express Book of the Year, for A Landing on the Sun
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1998: Critics' Circle Theatre Awards (Best New Play), for Copenhagen
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1998: London Evening Standard Award (Best Play), for Copenhagen
[
]
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2000: Tony Awards (Best Play), for Copenhagen
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2000: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award (Best Foreign Play), for Copenhagen
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2002: Whitbread Novel Award, for Spies
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2002: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Spies
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2003: Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Europe and South Asia Best Book), for Spies
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2003: London Evening Standard Award (Best Play), for Democracy
[
]
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2003: Golden PEN Award
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2005: Honorary DLitt from the University of Birmingham
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2006: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates
Frayn is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society,
and declined a CBE and a
Knight Bachelor in 1989 and 2003 respectively.
Bibliography
Novels
-
The Tin Men (1965)
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The Russian Interpreter (1966)
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Towards the End of the Morning (US title: Against Entropy) (1967)
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A Very Private Life (1968)
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Sweet Dreams (1973)
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The Trick of It (1989)
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A Landing on the Sun (1991)
[John Banville. 1992. "Playing House. Rev. of A Landing on the Sun by Michael Frayn and Daughters of Albion by A. N. Wilson. The New York Review of Books. 14 May 1992.][ New Statesman and Society. IV, 13 September 1991, p. 39.]
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Now You Know (1993)
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Headlong (1999)
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Spies (2002)
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Skios (2012)
Plays
Original
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The Two of Us, four one-act plays for two actors (1970) Black and Silver, Mr. Foot, Chinamen, and The new Quixote
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Alphabetical Order (1975)
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Donkeys' Years (1977)
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Clouds (1977)
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Balmoral (1978; revised 1980 as Liberty Hall, revised 1987)
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Make and Break (1980)
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Noises Off (1982)
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Benefactors (1984)
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The Sneeze (1988), based on short stories and plays of Chekhov
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First and Last (1989)
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(1990)
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Jamie on a Flying Visit; and Birthday (1990)
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Look Look (1990)
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Audience (1991)
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Here (1993)
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La Belle Vivette, a version of Jacques Offenbach's La Belle Hélène (1995)
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(1998)
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Copenhagen (1998)
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Democracy (2003) [3][4]
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Afterlife (2008) [5]
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(2014),
Translated
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The Cherry Orchard, from Chekhov (1978)
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The Fruits of Enlightenment, from Tolstoy (1979)
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Three Sisters, from Chekhov (1983, revised 1988)
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Number One, from Jean Anouilh's Le Nombril (1984)
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Wild Honey, from Chekhov (1984)
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The Seagull, from Chekhov (1986)
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Uncle Vanya, from Chekhov (1986)
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Exchange, adapted from Yuri Trifonov (1990)
Anthologies
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Plays: One (1985), – contains: Alphabetical Order; Donkey's Years; Clouds; Make and Break; Noises Off
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Plays: Two (1991), – contains: Balmoral; Benefactors; Wild Honey
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Plays: Three (2000), – contains: Here; Now You Know; La Belle Vivette
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Plays: Four (2010), – contains: Copenhagen; Democracy; Afterlife
Short fiction
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Speak After The Beep: Studies in the Art of Communicating With Inanimate and Semi-Animate Objects (1995).
Non-fiction
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The Day of the Dog, articles reprinted from The Guardian (1962).
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The Book of Fub, articles reprinted from The Guardian (1963).
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On the Outskirts, articles reprinted from The Observer (1964).
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At Bay in Gear Street, articles reprinted from The Observer (1967).
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The Original Michael Frayn, a collection of the above four, plus 19 new Observer pieces.
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Constructions, a volume of philosophy (1974).
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Celia's Secret: An Investigation (US title The Copenhagen Papers ), with David Burke (2000).
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The Human Touch: Our part in the creation of the universe (2006).
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Stage Directions: Writing on Theatre, 1970–2008 (2008), his path into theatre and a collection of the introductions to his plays.
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Travels with a Typewriter (2009), a collection of Frayn's travel pieces from the 1960s and '70s from The Guardian and the Observer.
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My Father's Fortune: A Life (2010), a memoir of Frayn's childhood.
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Among Others: Friendships and Encounters (2023), another memoir.
Notes
External links
