Sir Arnold Wesker (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was a British dramatist known for his contributions to world drama. He was the author of 50 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into many languages and performed worldwide.

Wesker was born in Stepney, London in 1932, the son of Leah (née Cecile Leah Perlmutter), a cook, and Joseph Wesker, a tailor's machinist. He was delivered by Samuel Sacks, father of neurologist Oliver Sacks. During the war period, the family moved to various places in England and Wales. He studied at the Upton House Central School, Hackney, East London from 1943 to 1948. He was accepted in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but could not pursue due to poor financial condition. Later he went on to work as cook, furniture maker, bookseller and served for two years in the Royal Air Force.

His early plays Roots, The Kitchen, and Their Very Own and Golden City were staged by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre under the management of George Devine and later William Gaskill.

His inspiration for 1957 play The Kitchen came when he was working at the Bell Hotel in Norwich, which was later made into a film. It was while working here that he also met his future wife Dusty. Roots is also set in Norfolk. Wesker's plays have dealt with themes ranging from self-discovery, love, confronting death, political disillusion and much else. Wesker joined with enthusiasm the Royal Court group on the Aldermaston March in 1959. Another of the Royal Court contingent, Lindsay Anderson, made a short documentary film (March to Aldermaston) about the event.

He was an active member of the Committee of 100 and, with other prominent members, was jailed in 1961 for his part in its campaign of mass nonviolent resistance to nuclear weapons.

He founded the Roundhouse's first theatre, called Centre 42, in 1964. He co-founded the Writers & Readers Publishing Cooperative Ltd with a group of writers that included John Berger, Lisa Appignanesi, Richard Appignanesi Chris Searle and Glenn Thompson, in 1974.

Wesker's play The Merchant (which he later renamed Shylock) uses the same three stories used by Shakespeare for his play The Merchant of Venice. In this retelling, Shylock and Antonio are fast friends bound by a mutual love of books, culture and a disdain for the crass antisemitism of the Christian community's laws. They make the bond in defiant mockery of the Christian establishment, never anticipating that the bond might become forfeit. When it does, the play argues, Shylock must carry through on the letter of the law or jeopardize the scant legal security of the entire Jewish community. He is, therefore, quite as grateful as Antonio when Portia, as in Shakespeare's play, shows the legal way out. The play received its American premiere on 16 November 1977 at New York's Plymouth Theatre with Joseph Leon as Shylock, Marian Seldes as Shylock's sister Rivka and Roberta Maxwell as Portia. This production had a challenging history in previews on the road, culminating (after the first night out of town in Philadelphia on 8 September 1977) with the death of the exuberant Broadway star Zero Mostel, who was initially cast as Shylock. Wesker wrote a book, The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel, chronicling the entire process from initial submissions and rejections of the play through to rehearsals, Zero's death, and the disappointment of the critical reception for the Broadway opening. The book reveals much about the playwright's relationship to director John Dexter (who had been the earliest, near-familial interpreter of Wesker's works), to criticism, to casting, and to the ephemeral process of collaboration through which the text of any play must pass.

In 2005, he published his first novel, Honey, which recounted the experiences of Beatie Bryant, the heroine of his earlier play Roots. The novel broke from the previously established chronology. Roots was set in the early 1960s and Beatie is 22, in Honey she has only aged three years yet the action has been transplanted into the 1980s. Other oddities are that the timeframe includes the Rushdie affair and John Major's fall as recent events and yet the action is concerned with the dotcom boom.

In 2008 Arnold Wesker published his first collection of poetry, All Things Tire of Themselves (Flambard Press). The collection dates back many years and represents what he considers his best and most characteristic poems. He was a member of the editorial advisory board of Jewish Renaissance magazine.

He was a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.

He was the castaway on Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, on in 1966 and again in 2006.

Personal life

Wesker married Doreen Bicker "Dusty" in 1958 and had three children Lindsay, Tanya and Daniel. Lindsay was named after director Lindsay Anderson. Tanya died in 2012. Wesker also had another daughter Elsa, with a Swedish journalist, Disa Håstad.

Wesker died on 12 April 2016. He was suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Awards

Wesker received numerous awards throught his career. In 1958 he received grant of GB£ 300 for the play Chicken Soup from the Arts Council of Great Britain. He used the money received to marry Bicker. The following year he won the Evening Standard Theatre Award in the "Most Promising Playwright" category. He was presented with the Italian Marzotto Prize (cash award GB£ 3000) in 1964 for Their Very Own and Golden City and the Spanish Best Foreign Play Award in 1979. He became the fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985 and was presented with the Goldie Award in 1987. For his "distinguished service to theatre" he was honoured with the Last Frontier Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999. He was knighted in the 2006 New Year's Honours list.

Works

• The Kitchen, 1957 ISBN 9781849437578
• Chicken Soup with Barley, 1958 ISBN 9781408156612
• Roots, 1958 ISBN 9781472574619
• I'm Talking about Jerusalem, 1960
• Menace, 1961 (for television)
• Chips with Everything, 1962
• The Nottingham Captain, 1962
• Four Seasons, 1965
• Their Very Own and Golden City, 1966
• The Friends, 1970
• The Old Ones, 1970
• The Journalist, 1972 ISBN 0140481338
• The Wedding Feast, 1974
• Shylock, 1976
• Love Letters on Blue Paper, 1976
• Phoenix, 1980
• Caritas, 1980 ISBN 9780224020206
• Words on the Wind, 1980
• One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round, 1980
• Breakfast, 1981
• Sullied Hand, 1981
• Four Portraits - Of Mothers, 1982
• Annie Wobbler, 1982
• Yardsale, 1983
• Cinders, 1983
• The Merchant, 1983
• Say Goodbye: You May Never See Them Again, 1983 (with Josh Allin)
• Distinctions, 1985
• Whatever Happened to Betty Lemon?, 1986
• When God Wanted a Son, 1986
• Lady Othello, 1987
• Little Old Lady & Shoeshine, 1987
• Badenheim 1939, 1987
• The Mistress, 1988
• Beorhtel's Hill, 1988 (community play for Basildon)
• Men Die Women Survive, 1990
• Letter To A Daughter, 1990
• Blood Libel, 1991
• Wild Spring, 1992
• Bluey, 1993
• The Confession, 1993
• Circles of Perception, 1996
• Break, My Heart, 1997
• Denial, 1997
• The King's Daughters, 1998
• Barabbas, 2000
• The Kitchen Musical, 2000
• Groupie, 2001 ISBn 1849437416
• Longitude, 2002
• Letter to Myself, 2004
• Honey, 2005 (novel)
• The Rocking Horse, 2007 (commissioned by the BBC World Service)
• Wesker On Theatre, 2010 (collection of essays)
• Joy and Tyranny, 2011