John McGrath

Playwright, Author

1935 – 2002

81

Who was John McGrath?

John Peter McGrath was a British playwright and theatre theorist who took up the cause of Scottish independence in his plays.

From an Irish Catholic background, McGrath was born in Birkenhead, and educated in Mold and, after his National Service, at St John's College, Oxford. During the early 1960s he worked for the BBC, and wrote and directed many of the early episodes of the Corporation's police series Z-Cars which began in 1962.

He is though remembered as a playwright and for his theoretical formulation of the principles of a radical, popular theatre. The 7:84 Theatre Company was established in 1971 by McGrath with this aim in mind, and The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil, his best-known play, was created with these principles in mind. It utilizes some of the dramaturgical and theatrical techniques of epic theatre - actors take on multiple roles and frequently slip out of character - of the type associated with the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, but which McGrath argued have a genealogy that stretches far further back through the history of popular traditions of performance.

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Born
Jun 1, 1935
Birkenhead
Also known as
  • John Peter McGrath
  • John McGraith
Spouses
Religion
  • Irish Catholic
Ethnicity
  • British people
Nationality
  • United Kingdom
Profession
Lived in
  • Liverpool
Died
Jan 22, 2002
Edinburgh

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

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