Campton, David 1924-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 5, 1924, in Leicester, England; died September 9, 2006. Author. Campton was best known as a playwright whose works were influenced by the Theater of the Absurd—or the Comedy of Menace—school. After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he worked as a clerk for the Leicester Education Department. From 1949 to 1956, he served a similar function for the East Midlands Gas Board. By the time he left this job, his plays were beginning to receive recognition. His play The Cactus Garden (1955) was produced in Reading, and in 1958 he was awarded a bursary by the Arts Council. Along with playwrights like Harold Pinter and John Arden, Campton wrote plays that tingled with a nervous comedy about serious social and political concerns. For Campton, the main source of tension in his early plays came from an underlying fear of a nuclear holocaust. This is particularly apparent in the 1958 play Then. … After winning British Theatre Association Awards for Everybody's Friend in 1975, After Midnight, before Dawn in 1978, and Mrs. Meadowsweet in 1985, Campton turned to writing for children and television. The author of well over a hundred stage and radio plays, including more recent works such as The Evergreens (1994) and Permission to Cry (1996), Campton was also the author of the nonfiction book Becoming a Playwright (1992).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), September 21, 2006, p. 64.