Peggy Ramsay | |
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| Born | Margaret Francesca Venniker 27 May 1908 Molong, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 4 September 1991 (aged 83) London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Theatrical Agent |
Margaret Francesca Ramsay (27 May 1908 - 4 September 1991) was an Australian-born British theatrical agent. [1]
Peggy Ramsay was born to English parents in Molong, New South Wales, Australia. [2] Her father's name was originally Vilenski, but her mother believed this Jewish name was a social drawback so had it changed to Venniker. [3] Her family had settled in South Africa by the end of the Great War, in which her father served in the South African Medical Corps. [4] During a brief and unhappy marriage, she came to England in 1929; her husband Norman Ramsay was under investigation in South Africa. After touring with an opera company, and a spell as an actress, she began reading scripts for theatrical managers including Peter Daubeny, [5] who was later known for organising annual World Theatre Seasons.
As she was gaining no financial return from scripts she was finding, in 1953 her friends and acquaintances persuaded her to open her own agency, in which they invested. For her entire career her business was based in Goodwin's Court, an alley off St Martin's Lane, London. She was able to buy out her partners in 1963, after the success of her first "discovery'", Robert Bolt. [1] Sometimes she could be wrong in her opinions. Of A Man for All Seasons (1966), Bolt's own screen adaptation of his play, she was dismissive: "We don’t expect it to succeed as it’s not very dramatic and has no sex at all". [6]
She represented many of the leading dramatists to emerge from the 1950s onwards, including Alan Ayckbourn, Eugène Ionesco, J. B. Priestley, Stephen Poliakoff and David Hare. [1] After discovering Joe Orton, then living on National Assistance, [7] she persuaded producer Michael Codron to stage Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane . Ramsay represented the dramatist, and then his estate, for the rest of her life. The 1978 biography of Orton by John Lahr, initiated by Ramsay in 1970, led to friction between the author and the playwright's former agent. [8] For about ten years, she consulted her client, David Hare, about the quality of the work of other writers represented by her agency. [6]
Ramsay's last years were affected by the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Her long term companion, the actor William Roderick, died in April 1991. She died on 4 September 1991 in London from the effects of a heart condition and circulation problems. [9]
The Peggy Ramsay Foundation has been established by her estate and makes grants and awards to help writers and writing for the stage. [10] Her archive has been donated to the British Library. [11] In 2009, a blue plaque was unveiled at Ramsay's former home in Kensington Place, Brighton by her friend and biographer Simon Callow. [12]
In Prick Up Your Ears (1987), the Orton film biopic based on the Lahr book, Ramsay is portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave, [9] while in Peggy For You (1999), a play by Alan Plater [13] set in the late 1960s, Ramsay is placed centre stage. Two books have been written about Ramsay; Peggy: The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent (1997) by Colin Chambers a biography, and Simon Callow's memoir Love Is Where It Falls: The Story of a Passionate Friendship (1999),an account of their friendship. [14] Peggy to her Playwrights: The Letters of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent, a collection of her letters edited by Colin Chambers, was published in 2018. [15]
From December 2021 to January 2022 Tamsin Greig played Ramsay in a revival of Plater's Peggy For You, directed by Richard Wilson at the Hampstead Theatre. [16] [17] [18]
John Kingsley Orton, known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist.
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He wrote The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952) and Separate Tables (1954), among many others.
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.
Sarah Kane was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.
Prick Up Your Ears is a 1987 British film, directed by Stephen Frears, about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based on the 1978 biography by John Lahr. The film stars Gary Oldman as Orton, Alfred Molina as Halliwell, Wallace Shawn as Lahr, and Vanessa Redgrave as Peggy Ramsay.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola falls in love with the Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man.
Kenneth Leith Halliwell was a British actor, writer and collagist. He was the mentor, boyfriend, and murderer of playwright Joe Orton.
Entertaining Mr Sloane is a three-act play written in 1963 by the English playwright Joe Orton. It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964.
Janet McTeer is an English actress. She began her career training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before earning acclaim for playing diverse roles on stage and screen in both period pieces and modern dramas. She has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Olivier Award, a Golden Globe Award and nominations for two Academy Award and Primetime Emmy Award. In 2008 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama.
Tamsin Margaret Mary Greig is a British actress. She is known for both dramatic and comedic roles. She played Fran Katzenjammer in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, Dr Caroline Todd in the Channel 4 sitcom Green Wing, Beverly Lincoln in British-American sitcom Episodes and Jackie Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Other roles include Alice Chenery in BBC One's comedy-drama series Love Soup, Debbie Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's soap opera The Archers, Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma, and Beth Hardiment in the 2010 film version of Tamara Drewe. In 2020, Greig starred as Anne Trenchard in Julian Fellowes' ITV series Belgravia.
Geraldine McEwan was an English actress, who had a long career in film, theatre and television. Michael Coveney described her, in a tribute article, as "a great comic stylist, with a syrupy, seductive voice and a forthright, sparkling manner".
John Henry Lahr is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at The New Yorker. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been called "one of the greatest biographers writing today".
The Ruffian On the Stair is a play by British playwright Joe Orton which was first broadcast on BBC Radio in 1964, in a production by John Tydeman. It is an unsympathetic yet comedic one-act portrayal of working class England, as played out by a couple and a mysterious young man who toys with their lives. It was based on The Boy Hairdresser, a novel by Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The title and play are based on a few lines from poet and dramatist William Ernest Henley: "Madam Life's a piece in bloom, / Death goes dogging everywhere: / She's the tenant of the room, / He's the ruffian on the stair." Ruffian is not as renowned as other works such as Loot and What the Butler Saw, but it is still staged on occasion.
Lindsay Vere Duncan is a Scottish actress. She is the recipient of three BAFTA nominations and one Scottish BAFTA nomination, as well as two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her work on stage. She has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Duncan's film credits include Prick Up Your Ears (1987), The Reflecting Skin (1990), City Hall (1996), An Ideal Husband, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Mansfield Park, Under the Tuscan Sun, AfterLife, Starter for 10 (2006), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), About Time (2013), Birdman (2014), and Blackbird (2019).
The Visitors is a 1961 one-act play by British playwright Joe Orton. The BBC and the Royal Court Theatre had considered the work but ultimately rejected it, despite both having insisted that the writing was "excellent." Orton's career took off in 1964 with the staging of his Entertaining Mr. Sloane, and The Visitors remained forgotten until its UK publication in 1998 by Nick Hern Books; a US edition from Grove Press followed in 1999.
Up Against It is an unproduced script by Joe Orton, written in 1967 for the Beatles at the height of their fame.
Simon Bent is a British screenwriter and playwright, notable for work including BBC TV drama Beau Brummell: This Charming Man (2006), the screenplay for the feature film Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (2000), and the Joe Orton biographical play Prick Up Your Ears based on John Lahr's book.
John Peter Tydeman OBE was an English producer of radio and director of theatre plays. He was responsible for commissioning and directing the early plays of Caryl Churchill, Joe Orton, Tom Stoppard and Sue Townsend.
Thomas Joseph Erhardt was an American-born theatrical literary agent whose career in British theatre spanned over five decades.
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