Graham Reid

Joseph Graham Reid (born 1945) is a British playwright from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Background

Born into a working-class family in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Reid left school at age 15, married young,

Characters in his work The Hidden Curriculum were based on pupils and teachers from the school at which he had taught. It was first performed at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1982. After a production the following year at the Lyric Players Theatre in Belfast, Ulster Television commissioned a screenplay which was broadcast in 1984. His trilogy, colloquially known as the Billy plays, for the BBC's Play for Today series, were his breakthrough works. These are Too Late to Talk to Billy (1982), A Matter of Choice for Billy (1983) and A Coming to Terms for Billy (1984). The lead in these television plays is a young Kenneth Branagh, who had previously worked in Reid's futuristic play Easter 2016, which was screened as part of the BBC's Play for Tomorrow series. It was while working on the later two Billy plays that Reid met the actress Gwen Taylor whom he later married. For BBC2's ScreenPlay series he wrote You, Me & Marley (1992), which won the Michael Powell Award for the best British film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Plays

Name Year first produced Where first produced The Death of Humpty Dumpty 1979 Abbey Theatre, Dublin The Closed Door 1980 Abbey Theatre Dorothy 1980 Oscar Theatre, Dublin Easter 1916 1982 Play for Tomorrow, BBC Television The Hidden Curriculum 1982 Abbey Theatre Too Late to Talk to Billy 1982 Play for Today, BBC Television A Matter of Choice for Billy 1983 Play for Today, BBC Television A Coming to Terms for Billy 1984 Play for Today, BBC Television Remembrance 1984 Lyric Theatre, Belfast Ties Of Blood 1985 Television Callers 1985 Abbey Theatre You, Me & Marley 1992ScreenPlay, BBC Television Lengthening Shadows 1995 Lyric Theatre, Belfast Love 1995 West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds Life After Life 1995 BBC Television Love, Billy 2013 Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Remembrance, perhaps his most popular play, is a story about a Protestant widower and a Catholic widow who meet at their murdered sons' graves and fall in love over the objections of their surviving children. The play has been performed all over the world: in Tel Aviv (in Hebrew), over eight months at the Irish Arts Center in Manhattan, and at the Old Globe, San Diego. It was performed by the Tara Players of Winnipeg at the first Acting Irish International Theatre Festival in 1994.

Personal life He has two daughters and a son.