Andrew James Wilson (2 August 1948 – 3 July 2013), better known as Snoo Wilson, was an English playwright, screenwriter and director. His early plays such as ''Blow-Job'' (1971) were overtly political, often combining harsh social comment with comedy. In his later works he moved away from purely political themes, embracing a range of surrealist, magical, philosophical and madcap, darkly comic subjects. After studying literature at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

, Wilson began his writing career in 1969. He began to build his reputation with a series of plays and screenplays in the early 1970s and was a founder of

Portable Theatre Company Portable Theatre Company was a writer-led company that toured alternative arts venues in the UK between 1968 -1973. Their aim was to present original and provocative new writing that challenged the staid mediocrity of mainstream theatre. A portabl ...

, a touring company concentrating on experimental theatre. In the mid-1970s, he served as

dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults au ...

to the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

and produced one of his best-regarded plays, ''The Soul of the White Ant''. In 1978, his surrealist play ''The Glad Hand'' attracted favourable notice, as did his 1994 play, ''Darwin's Flood'', among others. He continued to write plays and screenplays until the end of his life, including for the

Bush Theatre The Bush Theatre is located in the Passmore Edwards Public Library, Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 as a showcase for the work of new writers. The Bush Theatre strives to create a s ...

. He also wrote several novels and held teaching positions.

Biography

Early years

Wilson was born in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

, the son of two teachers: Leslie Wilson and his wife Pamela Mary ''née'' Boyle."Snoo Wilson"
''Contemporary Authors Online'', Thomson Gale, 2006, accessed 30 November 2011 Snoo was a childhood nickname."Snoo Wilson: Wayward writer of challenging plays leavened with dark comedy"
Obituaries, ''The Times'', 5 July 2013, p. 53 He was educated at Bradfield College, where his father taught,Hughes, Dusty
"Snoo Wilson obituary"
''The Guardian'', 5 June 2013 and the

(UEA), graduating with a degree in American and English Literature in 1969."Wilson, Snoo"
''Who's Who'' 2011, A & C Black, 2011; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2010, accessed 29 November 2011 At UEA, he was a student of Lorna Sage and Malcolm Bradbury. Wilson's early plays, the one-act ''Girl Mad as Pigs'' and the two-act ''Ella Daybellfesse's Machine'', were first produced at UEA in, respectively, June and November 1967. Two years later, a second one-act play, ''Between the Acts'', was first produced in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

, at the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

. In 1969, Wilson embarked on a writing career. Together with Tony Bicat and David Hare, Wilson founded the

, a touring company concentrating on experimental theatre, and was its associate director from 1970 to 1975.Coveney, Michael
"Tales of Bob and Snoo Wilson at the Manchester International Festival"
''What'sOnStage" , 5 July 2013 His plays from these years included four one-act works, ''Charles the Martyr'' (1970), ''Device of Angels'' (1970), ''Pericles, The Mean Knight'' (1970) and ''Reason'' (1972), most of which dealt with overtly political subjects.

1970s

Wilson's first full-length works to attract notice were ''Pignight'' and ''Blow-Job'', both produced in 1971, in which "Horror and farce sat side by side." ''Pignight'', the first of his own plays that Wilson directed, is a nightmarish fantasy about a mentally disturbed former soldier, who, while on a

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

pig farm, believes that pigs are about to take over the world. Dusty Hughes called it "a vivid and emetic portrait of rural change and urban corruption". Critic Michael Billington described it as a "savage and disenchanted portrait of rural life". ''Blow-Job'' is a political exploration of urban violence during which a quantity of raw meat is thrown on stage to simulate the corpse of an Alsatian dog that has just been blown up. With some reservations, Irving Wardle praised the piece in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' for its "authentic sense of horror … its intermingling of physical outrage and savage farce." In Wilson's 1973 full-length play, ''The Pleasure Principle'', comedy, politics and social comment were again combined, but to less savage effect. Billington wrote, "On the one hand it is a strenuous indictment of ownership, property, greed and personal exploitation: on the other, it is a madhouse extravaganza that operates on the good old comic principle of always putting a bomb under the audience's expectations." In ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'', Robert Cushman wrote, "This is one of the best plays of the seventies' heartless school;

Coward Cowardice is a trait wherein excessive fear prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger. It is the opposite of courage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumbs to cowa ...

's ''

Design for Living ''Design for Living'' is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Cowa ...

'' is a fount of charity by comparison." Other full-length plays of this period were ''Vampire'' (1973) written for Paradise Foundry, ''The Beast'' (1974), staged by the

and ''The Everest Hotel'' (1975) for

, which he also directed. In the 1970s, Wilson's plays fell from favour with theatre producers who were looking for more commercial projects. Wilson was successful with screenplays and teleplays in the 1970s, including ''Sunday for Seven Days'' (1971), ''The Good Life'' (1971), ''More About the Universe'' (1972), ''Swamp Music'' (1973), ''The Barium Meal'' (1974), ''The Trip to Jerusalem'' (1974), ''Don't Make Waves'' (1975) and ''A Greenish Man'' (1979). In 1975 and 1976, he was

to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and in 1976 he married the journalist Ann McFerran, a theatre critic, with whom he had two sons, Patrick and David, and a daughter, Jo. In the same year, he became script editor of the BBC television anthology drama series, ''

Play for Today ''Play for Today'' is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage ...

''. A play that year, ''The Soul of the White Ant'', starring Simon Callow, was first produced at the Soho Poly. It is a dramatic treatment of a racial murder in South Africa and the ensuing cover-up by the police and the press. A white woman has an affair with a Black lover and then shoots him. It is "possibly ilson'smasterpiece". Norman, Neil
Obituaries: Snoo Wilson
''The Stage'', July 2013 In 1978, ''The Glad Hand'', in which a South African tycoon employs a troupe of actors and sails an oil tanker through the

Bermuda Triangle The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysteri ...

, hoping to conjure up the Anti-Christ and kill him in a Wild West gunfight, premiered at the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...

and won the John Whiting Award. Cushman wrote, "Sceptics like me have sometimes fallen foul of Mr Wilson's concern with the occult; here he makes it easy for us. Like

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and polit ...

he sets up impossible situations and explains them; and his wit in this piece has a Stoppardian exhilaration." Later that year, Wilson was appointed Henfield Fellow at the University of East Anglia.

Later years

Wilson's style grew away from the overtly political manner of his contemporaries David Hare and

Howard Brenton Howard John Brenton FRSL (born 13 December 1942) is an English playwright and screenwriter. While little-known in the United States, he is celebrated in his home country and often ranked alongside contemporaries such as Edward Bond, Caryl Chu ...

, and he often wrote about the arcane, the occult, and the irrational, whether in the Gothic intrigues of ''Vampire'' (1973), the space aliens of ''Moonshine'' (1999), or the duelling wizards of ''The Number of the Beast'' (1982). Commenting on his interest in magical subjects, Wilson said, "It's only because people like to think that the material world is at base solid that they have to think of magic as a separate category of events. … The stage is very near magic in what it does and it's also composed of finally the same thing, which is sort of people and tinsel, which is all magic really is." On another occasion, Wilson commented, "I prefer to write for theatre because it can create the oldest magic. The question of its relevance is only asked by passive incredulous individuals who cannot swallow the idea that perception is an act." Nevertheless, while Wilson's "work is non-naturalistic and largely fantastical, it is based on concrete principals (sic) about the way we live." Wilson often sought to fuse social criticism with a surrealistic, comic style. He said in 1978, "I think, well, you have to laugh, don't you? With all the dreadful, dreadful things going on I think of that as my way of keeping a grasp on my own sensibilities. In fact, it's the only way I have."Chaillet, Ned. "The unpredictable Snoo Wilson", ''The Times'', 10 May 1978, p. 14 He wrote some of his later plays for the Bush Theatre in

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character ...

, including ''More Light'' (1987) and ''Darwin's Flood'' (1994). The first "convened Giordano Bruno with Elizabeth I, Doctor Dee and a female Shakespeare in heaven in 1600".Coveney, Michael
"Snoo Wilson: Playwright whose work was fuelled by his chaotic visions of the absurd and surreal"
''The Independent'', 9 July 2013 In ''Darwin's Flood'',

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

is visited on the eve of his death by his fascistic sister Elizabeth, her feckless husband Bernard, a dominatrix

Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurre ...

, the philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

, and Jesus in the guise of a wisecracking Irish bicyclist who seduces Darwin's wife, Emma. Meanwhile, a mammoth Ark breaks through the lawn of Darwin's backyard. The director Simon Stokes commented that there is a serious message behind such extravagances: "In a very humorous way the play is also asking: What if God does exist, and put the fossils in the rocks?"O'Mahony, John. "Snoo's ark lands", ''The Observer'', 1 May 1994, p. C7 A departure from Wilson's usual theatrical genres was in 1986, when he wrote a new libretto for Offenbach's '' Orpheus in the Underworld'' for the

English National Opera English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English ...

. The reviews concentrated on the production designs, which strongly divided opinion; Wilson's work escaped the sharp censure directed at his colleagues, and his device of turning the bossy character "Public Opinion" into a parody of the then prime minister,

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

, was favourably remarked upon. Wilson's only play to have a production in the West End was ''HRH'', concerning the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in exile. His television movies included ''

Shadey ''Shadey'' is a 1985 British comedy film directed by Philip Saville and starring Antony Sher, Billie Whitelaw and Patrick Macnee. The screenplay concerns a man with clairvoyant qualities who is recruited by British intelligence for a secret missi ...

'', an ESP-themed piece for Channel 4 (1986) and '' Eichmann'', about the interrogation of the eponymous character (2007). Two musicals, aimed at youth theatre, were ''Bedbug: The Musical'', an adaptation of the 1929 play by Vladimir Mayakovsky, and a musical about the short and dramatic life of soldier-composer

Felix Powell Felix Lloyd Powell (23 May 1878 – 10 February 1942) was a Welsh British Army Staff Sergeant most famous for writing the music for marching song " Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile", in 1915, during World ...

. ''Sabina'' (1998) "remains the best drama about

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, ph ...

's relationship with a young female mental patient, and later his student, Sabina Spielrein". In 2010, one of Wilson's last plays to be staged was ''Reclining Nude with Black Stockings'', about the 1912 rape trial of Austrian painter

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portrai ...

. Wilson taught literature and theatre at various institutions both in Britain and America later in life. His academic posts included those of US Bicentennial Fellow in Playwriting (1981–82) and Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of California at San Diego (1987). He taught scriptwriting at the National Film School and returned to UEA as writer in residence. Of his non-theatre works, his 1984 novel, ''Spaceache'', was described by

Margaret Drabble Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, (born 5 June 1939) is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer. Drabble's books include '' The Millstone'' (1965), which won the following year's John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and '' Je ...

and Jenny Stringer as "a dystopian fantasy of a grim and ruthless high-technology low-competence future". John Melmoth, the reviewer in ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', wrote that Wilson scored in his "nearness to the knuckle … a quirky, unpleasant and emetic sense of humour." Wilson also reviewed plays under the pseudonym Andy Boyle. Wilson died of a heart attack in

Ashford, Kent Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Great Stour at the southern or scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London and northwest of Folkestone by road. In the 2011 census, it had a populati ...

, on 3 July 2013, aged 64. ''The Times'' called Wilson, "the wild man of the theatre, a playwright of extravagant and idiosyncratic talent who broke most of the rules and never settled for the safe and ordinary." Wilson's literary archive is held within the British Archive for Contemporary Writing at th
University of East Anglia

Works

Selected plays

*''Charles the Martyr'' (1970) *''Device of Angels'' (1970) *''Pericles, The Mean Knight'' (1970) *''Pignight'' (1971) *''Blow-Job'' (1971) *''Reason'' (1972) *''The Pleasure Principle: The Politics of Love, The Capital of Emotion'' (1973) *''Vampire'' (1973) *''The Everest Hotel'' (1975) *''The Soul of the White Ant'' (1976) *''The Glad Hand'' (1978) *''The Number of the Beast'' (1982; revised version of ''The Beast'', 1974) *''Flaming Bodies'' (1983) *''More Light'' (1987) *''80 Days'' (1988; with music by Ray Davies) *''Darwin's Flood'' (1994) *''HRH'' (1997)Jury, Louise
"How We Met; Simon Callow and Snoo Wilson"
''The Independent'', 5 October 1997 *''Sabina'' (1998) *''Moonshine'' (1999) *''Love Song of the Electric Bear'' (2003)

Selected screenplays, TV and radio

*''Sunday for Seven Days'' (1971) *''The Good Life'' (1971) *''More About the Universe'' (1972) *''Swamp Music'' (1973; episode of ''Thirty-Minute Theatre'' TV series) *''The Barium Meal'' (1974) *''The Trip to Jerusalem'' (1974) *''Don't Make Waves'' (1975) *''A Greenish Man'' (1979; episode of ''The Other Side'' TV series) *''

'' (1985) *'' Hippomania'' (2004 radio play) *'' Eichmann'' (2007)

Novels

*''Spaceache'' (1984) *''Inside Babel'' (1985) *''I, Crowley: Almost the Last Confession of the Beast 666'' (1999) *''The Works of Melmont'' (2004)

Notes

External links

*
review of Snoo Wilson's play, Love Song of the Electric Bear by Washington Post

Snoo Wilson Archive, University of East Anglia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Snoo 1948 births 2013 deaths Alumni of the University of East Anglia English screenwriters English male screenwriters English theatre directors People educated at Bradfield College People from Reading, Berkshire Academics of the University of East Anglia University of California, San Diego faculty English male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English male writers British male dramatists and playwrights