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Happy Families is a play written by John Godber in 1991.
A play is form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of dialogue or singing between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from London's West End and Broadway in New York – which are the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world – to regional theatre, to community theatre, as well as university or school productions. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference as to whether their plays were performed or read. The term "play" can refer to both the written texts of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance.
John Harry Godber is an English dramatist, known mainly for his observational comedies. In the Plays and Players Yearbook for 1993 he was reckoned to be the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. Godber has been creative director of the Theatre Royal Wakefield since 2011.
It is an autobiographical play set in Northern England and tells the story of a boy called John and his parents Vic and Dot. It tells of the stresses and strains of growing up with his family. It tells of how he grows up through his teenage years and through to when he gets his degree. Other characters within the play include Jack and Liz (John's grandparents), Doris and Edna (John's Aunties) and Rebecca (Edna's Daughter). It is a memory play and the narrative jumps back and forth from when John was about 9 until when he graduates with a degree as a drama teacher. John Godber has described it as "humour with a touch of sadness".
Northern England, also known as the North of England or simply the North, is the northern part of England, considered as a single cultural area. It extends from the Scottish border in the north to near the River Trent in the south, although precise definitions of its southern extent vary. Northern England approximately comprises three statistical regions: the North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. These have a combined population of around 14.9 million as of the 2011 Census and an area of 37,331 km2. Northern England contains much of England's national parkland but also has large areas of urbanisation, including the conurbations of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Teesside, Tyneside, Wearside, and South and West Yorkshire.
A memory play is a play in which a lead character narrates the events of the play, which are drawn from the character's memory. The term was coined by playwright Tennessee Williams, describing his work The Glass Menagerie. In his production notes, Williams says, "Being a 'memory play', The Glass Menagerie can be presented with unusual freedom of convention." In a widening of the definition, it has been argued that Harold Pinter's plays Old Times, No Man's Land and Betrayal are memory plays, where "memory becomes a weapon". Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa is a late 20th-century example of the genre.
It takes its name from the card game of the same name - Happy Families.
Happy Families is a traditional British card game usually with a specially made set of picture cards, featuring illustrations of fictional families of four, most often based on occupation types. The object of the game is to collect complete families, and the game is similar to Go Fish.
