Harold Brighouse
Harold Brighouse (26 July 1882 – 25 July 1958) was an English playwright and author whose best-known play is Hobson's Choice. He was a prominent member, together with Allan Monkhouse and Stanley Houghton, of a group known as the Manchester School o
... Read more
Harold Brighouse (26 July 1882 – 25 July 1958) was an English playwright and author whose best-known play is Hobson's Choice. He was a prominent member, together with Allan Monkhouse and Stanley Houghton, of a group known as the Manchester School of dramatists.
The first play written by Brighouse was Lonesome Like, but the first to be produced was The Doorway. This was performed in 1909 at Annie Horniman's Gaiety Theatre in Manchester and produced by Ben Iden Payne. Horniman and Payne gave strong support to Brighouse in the early stages of his career. Many of his plays were one-act pieces; three of the best of these (The Northerners, Zack and The Game) were published together as Three Lancashire Plays in 1920. All of these plays were set in Lancashire but Brighouse also wrote plays of a different type, such as The Oak Settle and Maid of France. His most successful play was Hobson's Choice, first produced in 1915 in New York where Payne was working. It was first produced in England in 1916 at the Apollo Theatre, London, where it ran for 246 performances. The play was made into a film, directed by David Lean, in 1953, and it was produced at the National Theatre at the Old Vic, London, in 1964. The Crucible Theatre Sheffield staged a revival in June 2011 directed by Christopher Luscombe and starring Barrie Rutter, Zoe Waites and Philip McGinley.
Brighouse also wrote novels, including Hepplestall's, concerning a Lancashire mill-owning family in the 19th century. In addition, he wrote many reviews and other pieces for the Manchester Guardian. He was a member of the Dramatists' Club and in 1930–31 was chairman of the Society of Authors' dramatic committee. After 1931 he wrote no more full-length plays. His autobiography What I Have Had was published in 1953.
Less
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
.jpg){kind=logo}
