Hugh Leonard

Selected Plays of Hugh Leonard 1995

Contains The Au Pair Man, The Patrick Pearse Motel, Da, Summer, A Life, Kill, and a Bibliographical Checklist. `Hugh Leonard' is the pen-name of John Keyes Byrne. He is, as Christopher Fitz-Simon has written, `the most prolific and most technically assured of modern Irish playwrights', and his cosmopolitanism is shown by the range of his work, twenty-five plays (eighteen of which have been published), and seven adaptations of others' work for stage, something like thirty individual plays for television, work for over forty TV series totalling well in excess of 120 original episodes, and over 100 episodes for serials based on others' works (Emily Bronte, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Somerville & Ross, for example), as well as over a dozen film scripts. The output is truly phenomenal. Although a constant contributor to television, it is for the theatre that he has produced his finest work. This selection amply illustrates Leonard's cosmopolitan talent and his constant ability to entertain his audience.