A Taste of Honey at Stantonbury Theatre

A Taste Of Honey” is a play of it time and ahead of its time. Now a GCSE English Literature text, it is a good moment to look back and consider its significance and relevance to modern British theatre. Working class characters were not usually central to many plays at the time. What is also exceptional is that two women’s lives are at its core. One of the play’s main themes is the relationship between mother and daughter. The play marks the early stages of an alternative socially and gender aware theatre tradition.

“A Taste Of Honey“ was Shelagh Delaney’ s first play written when she was only nineteen. It was originally intended as a novel, but Delaney turned it into a play because she hoped to revitalise British theatre and address social issues that she thought were not being presented. A Taste of Honey comments on, and puts into question, class, race, age of sexual consent, gender, sexual orientation and illegitimacy in mid-twentieth-century Britain.

It became known as a “kitchen sink” drama and part of a genre revolutionising British theatre at the time. It was accepted by Joan Littlewood for production by the Theatre Workshop in 1958, then at the height of its powers. It was later made into a highly acclaimed film in 1962 starring Dora Bryan, Murray Melvin and Rita Tushingham.