Halliwell, David 1936-2006
(Johnson Arms, David William Halliwell)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 31, 1936, in Brighouse, Yorkshire, England; died March 16, 2006. Director and author. Halliwell was a theater director and playwright best known for his offbeat humorous play Little Malcolm and His Struggle against the Eunuchs (1965). After attending the Huddersfield College of Art for several years, an institution from which he was temporarily expelled, he earned a diploma from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1961. He entered theater work immediately as assistant stage manager at the Nottingham Playhouse and was also an actor in Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, and London during much of the 1960s. His first play, Little Malcolm and His Struggle against the Eunuchs (produced in New York City asHail Scrawdyke in 1966), was based on his experience at art school and is a satirical drama that captures the rebellious spirit of the 1960s. The play debuted at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1965 and was a big hit; it also won the Evening Standard's most promising playwright award for the author. Unfortunately for Halliwell, he would never repeat such success again, though he wrote many other works for the stage and television over the years. To compound his problems, some theater groups confused him with the deceased writer Kenneth Halliwell and would produce his first play without his permission or royalty payments because they thought he was dead. An initial plan to adapt the play into a film starring the Beatles was dropped, which greatly upset the playwright, as well, though it was later produced for the silver screen in 1973 as Little Malcolm. While Halliwell continued to write, he also had a long career as a director. The cofounder of Quipu Productions in London in 1966, he was a director there for ten years. Afterwards, he continued his theater work throughout England and Scotland, working at such venues as the BanksideGlobe Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, the Hampstead Theatre, and the National Theatre. He also found work in television and radio, writing scripts for the media from 1980 through 1992. In the 1990s, Halliwell became active in local government and business as a member of the Charlbury Town Council, beginning in 1992, and the Charlbury Chamber of Commerce; he was also a member of the Gifford Trust. Among his many other plays for stage and television are A Last Belch for the Great Auk (1971; revised, 2002), Meriel the Ghost Girl (1976), Prejudice (1978), which won the John Whiting Award, A Tomato Who Grew into a Mushroom (1987), and One Sex This Then the Other Sex That (1999).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), March 21, 2006, p. 63.