David Edgar (playwright) - Early Life

Early Life

Edgar was born in Birmingham, England, into the fourth generation of a theatrical family. His maternal grandmother was the character actress Isabel Thornton who had made films in the 1930s, including Laugh with Me (1938); his maternal aunt Nancy Burman ran the Birmingham Repertory Theatre throughout the 1960s and '70s, and his mother Joan (née Burman) was an actress and BBC Overseas Service radio announcer during World War II. His father, Barrie Edgar (1919-2012), was an actor and stage manager at the Birmingham Rep before joining the BBC in 1946, soon working as a television producer, whose credits included Come Dancing and Songs of Praise. Barrie Edgar's father, and David Edgar's grandfather, was the early broadcaster Percy Edgar who had been the founding manager of 5IT - the first BBC radio station to open outside London - and the first regional Director of the BBC Midland Region.

It was inevitable then, that young Edgar and his sister Kate, now a musical director, would be immersed in theatre from an early age. Being brought up in what he later recalled as a "more or less upper-middle-class family" with both parents, three grandparents, and "various other slightly more distant relatives" all involved in the theatre or broadcasting, Edgar remembers having seen most of the Shakespeare canon by the age of fifteen, either in his native Birmingham or in nearby Stratford-upon-Avon, plus the complete Agatha Christie and many more of "the sort of plays one would never go to now." His father converted a garden shed into a twelve-seat theatre for him in their garden and the young Edgar began to write plays for "the theatre in the shed" from the age of five with the intention of giving himself the starring role. By the age of nine he had written his first full-scale work, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare. "At this stage", Edgar recalled, "the idea of being a playwright who would write large parts for other people had not entered my consciousness." He really wanted to be an actor, "I wrote the 'Life and Times' for the sole purpose of playing Shakespeare's lead actor Richard Burbage." But after some tactful advice from his mother regarding his acting ability he decided that acting was not for him and turned his hand to writing more seriously.

At Oundle School in Northamptonshire, Edgar became immersed in theatre and was the first pupil in over 300 years of school history to be permitted to direct a play. Undeterred by his actors all being male, he chose Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage, a play calling for six female roles and, forgetting his mother's advice, cast himself in the lead role as the woman who hopes to profit from war by running a canteen for soldiers, but loses all three of her children to the war from which she had hoped to profit. After leaving school in 1966, Edgar taught for one term at a preparatory school and then went to Manchester University to read drama with a view to becoming a playwright.

In addition to chairing the Socialist Society at Manchester University, Edgar edited the student newspaper, and found himself unable to heed his mother's advice. In 1967, the National Student Drama Festival was held in Bradford and was won by Edinburgh University's production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming (1965). Peter Farrago, director of the winning play put together a cast from talent at the Festival to perform Mike Alfreds' Mandrake, The Musical at the next Edinburgh Festival. That cast included Ian Charleson and David Rintoul, both of Edinburgh University, Tim Piggott-Smith from Bristol University and David Edgar played the Apothecary. On graduating in 1969 he became a journalist with The Bradford Telegraph and Argus for a short time before becoming a full-time writer in 1972. He maintains his journalism with regular contributions to newspapers and journals such as The Guardian and The London Review of Books.