Barry Reckord

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Barry Reckord (19 November 1926 – 20 December 2011) was a Jamaican playwright, one of the earliest Caribbean writers to make a contribution to theatre in Britain.[1][2][3][4]

Biography

He was born Barrington John Reckord in Kingston, Jamaica, where he grew up in Vineyard Town with his three siblings: two brothers, Carol and Lloyd, and a sister Cynthia.[2] He attended Kingston College and after matriculation went on to study theology at St Peter's College in 1948. He left the island in 1950 after winning an Issa Scholarship to Cambridge University, where he read for a degree at Emmanuel College, graduating in 1953.[1][5]

He began writing plays as a student and several of them were performed at London's Royal Court Theatre (he is claimed as the first Black Briton to have had a play on there),[6] sometimes directed by his brother Lloyd Reckord.[1][7][8]

Della, Reckord's first play, which (as Adella) had been staged by his brother in a small fringe production in 1954, was produced under the title Flesh to a Tiger at the Royal Court in 1958, directed by Tony Richardson, with a cast that featured Cleo Laine, Pearl Prescod, Nadia Cattouse, Johnny Sekka and Lloyd Reckord,[5] and choreography by Boscoe Holder.[9] The play dealt with the attempts by a cult leader to enforce his wishes on a female member of his congregation.[10]

In 1961 the Royal Court also produced You in Your Small Corner, which transferred to the New Arts Theatre and was adapted for ITV's Play of the Week series in 1962,[5] directed by Claude Whatham.[11][12] This broadcast is now thought to contain the First interracial kiss on television between Lloyd Reckord, the playwright's brother, and Elizabeth MacLennan.[13][14]

Reckord's most successful play Skyvers, first produced in 1963 at the Royal Court (directed by Ann Jellicoe, with an all-white cast that included David Hemmings),[5] is considered by Guardian critic Michael Billington "one of the key plays of the 1960s", prefiguring Edward Bond's 1965 Saved.[15] Skyvers, which deals with the alienation of a group of working-class south London boys in the last few days at their comprehensive school, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in November 2012 as part of a series of plays curated by Kwame Kwei-Armah,[16] after lobbying to ensure better recognition for black dramatists.[17]

Reckord wrote other television dramas, including for the BBC In the Beautiful Caribbean (1972) and Club Havana (1975),[3] as well as a book about Cuba entitled Does Fidel Eat More Than Your Father (Praeger, 1971).[1]

In 1973 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to Assist Research and Artistic Creation.[18] Also in 1973, Reckord was awarded the Silver Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica.[1][2]

After living most of his adult life in Britain, mostly with his companion Diana Athill, in the last few years of his life he returned to Jamaica, where he died.[1]

Legacy

On 23 September 2012, a tribute to Reckord's life and work, called "Reckord Celebrations"[19] (directed by Michael Buffong for Talawa Theatre Company and The London Hub),[15] was held at the Bush Theatre, Shepherd's Bush, London, with contributors including Max Stafford-Clark, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Don Warrington and Diana Athill. At the same time The London Hub launched the Barry Reckord Bursary, open to black, Asian and minority ethnic artists, and designed to encourage new playwrights.[20] As Michael Billington commented in The Guardian: "It's good to see Reckord at last being given his due. But one way to celebrate a playwright is to encourage his successors."[15] The first recipient of the Barry Reckord Bursary was announced in January 2013.[21]

Selected plays

  • 1953: Della (Ward Theatre, Kingston, Jamaica)
  • 1954: Adella (London)
  • 1958: Flesh to a Tiger (Royal Court, London)
  • 1960: You in Your Small Corner (Royal Court); adapted for Granada Television's Play of the Week strand, 1962
  • 1963, 1971: Skyvers (Royal Court)
  • 1969: Don't Gas the Blacks (Royal Court; directed by Lloyd Reckord)[22]
  • 1970: A Liberated Woman (Royal Court)
  • 1973: Give the Gaffers Time To Love You (Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs)
  • 1974: X (Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs)
  • 1975: The White Witch of Rose Hall (Creative Arts Centre, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica)
  • 1984: Streetwise
  • 1985: The White Witch (London)
  • 1988: Sugar D (Barn Theatre, Kingston, Jamaica)

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Vanessa Thorpe, "After a century of black British theatre, actors still struggle to take centre stage", The Observer, 25 October 2015.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Michael Reckord, "Theatre Veteran Lloyd Reckord Passes", The Gleaner, 11 July 2015.
  9. ↑ "Flesh to a Tiger", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
  10. ↑ Arthur Holmberg, Carlos Solorzano, World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Volume 2: The Americas, Routledge, 2014, p. 189.
  11. ↑ "You in Your Small Corner (5 Jun. 1962)", IMDb.
  12. ↑ Eleni Liarou, "You in Your Small Corner (1962)", BFI Screen Online.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Stuart Black, "World’s First Interracial TV Kiss Was In Brixton", Londonist, 20 November 2015.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Michael Billington, "Why the best way to honour past playwrights is to invest in the future", The Guardian, 18 September 2012.
  16. ↑ "Skyvers by Barry Reckord", Drama on 3, BBC Radio 3, 18 November 2012.
  17. ↑ Elizabeth Pears, "Fond Farewell To Trio Who Helped Shape Black Britain", The Voice, 24 January 2012.
  18. ↑ Historical Geographies, 7 February 2012.
  19. ↑ "Who was Barry Reckord?", Talawa Theatre Company, 18 September 2012.
  20. ↑ "London Hub seeks emerging artists and playwrights for the Barry Reckord Bursary & Pitch it", Afridiziak Theatre News, 2 October 2012.
  21. ↑ "Ravi Thornton is the first recipient of The Barry Reckord Bursary", Afridiziak Theatre News, 19 January 2013.
  22. ↑ "Dont Gas the Blacks", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.

External links

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