Michael Frayn

Over a seven-decade career, Michael Frayn has been acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, journalist, translator & memoirist. From his comedies – including the stage farce Noises Off, and a screenplay for Clockwise starring John Cleese, and the novels Headlong and Skios – to the complex political, historical and scientific themes of his stage plays Democracy and Copenhagen, he has been prolific in a diverse array of genres and subjects. He is also renowned for his stage adaptations of the works of Russian writers including Anton Chekhov. At 92, Michael Frayn advised on a recent revival of Copenhagen for the Hampstead Theatre.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Archive used:

Extract from To A Skylark, Percy Bysshe Shelley, read by Timothy West, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 1998
Extract from Spies, Michael Frayn, read by Martin Jarvis, BBC Radio 4, 29 April 2002
Clip from Wild Honey, Michael Frayn/Anton Chekov, BBC Radio 4, 20 January 1989
Extract from Scoop, Evelyn Waugh, read by Robert Hardy, BBC Radio 4, 3 April 1998
Clip from Noises Off, Peter Bogdanovich, 1992
Clip from Clockwise, Christopher Morahan, 1986
Clip from Copenhagen, Howard Davies, 2002