GHOST BOY: a playwright's progress

by Richard Crane

'As the rain tipped down and thunder cracked... I knew I was a ghost.  I was an actor and always would be. And I had to keep it up, for as long as the person I no longer was, might live.'    So begins the progress - part pilgrim, part rake - out of post-war austerity, into the boom years of the most vibrant cultural flowering since Shakespeare. Leaving home at age seven, I sing and act through education, then run away to sea. At Cambridge, in the wake of the Pythons and the Goodies, I reach the top of the comedy ladder, just as my family emigrate leaving me loose in Swinging London and seeking my fortune on the stage. Weekly rep, West End, arts lab, the Edinburgh  Ghost Boy chronicles the journey from vagabond actor to accidental playwright, to Fellow in Theatre at Bradford University, to Resident Dramatist at the National. Like Olivier and David Frost, I was a ‘preacher’s kid’ who ducked the Hand of God to become a questioner and entertainer. A true story of dreams lived, hopes dashed, loves lost, battles won, Ghost Boy relives the leaps of faith and pratfalls into the void, that laid the ground for tomorrow's theatre. 'Very, very funny and beautifully written... a recollection in laughter...' - Howard Brenton 'Huge energy and wit in the writing... very evocative of the time...' - David Edgar ‘Terrifically well written, funny and sad… the past tantalisingly coexistent with the present.’ - Andy Mayer ‘A witty, beguiling memoir from this distinguished writer, hurtling through Cambridge & the deceitful 60s. All his contemporaries (I am one) will recognise his sharp recall of the raging egos colliding in those far-off, magic days when we were young & knew everything & nothing.’ - Miriam Margolyes

897 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 26, 2020

About the author

RICHARD CRANE is an actor and playwright. He was the first Resident Dramatist at the National Theatre; Literary Manager at the Royal Court; Fellow in Theatre, University of Bradford; Fellow in Creative Writing, University of Leicester; Visiting Writing Fellow, University of East Anglia; Lecturer in Creative and Dramatic Writing, University of Sussex and Writer in Residence, HM Prison Bedford. Nine of his plays have won Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Awards, including Thunder, The Quest, Vanity, Satan’s Ball, Pushkin, Rolling the Stone. Other plays include Brothers Karamazov, starring Alan Rickman, Edinburgh Festival and West End; Mutiny!, with David Essex, Piccadilly Theatre London; Venus and Superkid, Arts Theatre and Roundhouse London; The Possessed, with Yuri Lyubimov and Alfred Schnittke, Odeon Paris, Almeida London; Gogol, Royal Court London, Traverse Edinburgh, Moscow, New York; Clownmaker, Edinburgh, London, New York and Bloody Neighbours, National Theatre. He is co-Founder and Associate Director of Brighton Theatre. His plays are published by Heinemann, Samuel French and Oberon Books.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Crane’s beautifully written book tells his own story seen through an artist’s eyes. Ghost Boy is characterised by great dollops of this playwright’s humour, with a heartfelt truth that compels the reader onward. I confess that this reviewer was a theatre student of Richard’s during the 1970s in Bradford. Along with my cohort, we loved the plays from the pen of our teacher and director. Richard Crane paints a vivid picture of growing up in post war England, his childhood shaped by family, boarding school, and a clergyman father. At high school he presents his first play to an overbearing school master, who edits his precious words: “I fought for each victim, but the inexorable mangling wore me down.” An editor who removes all traces of humour from the script, strikes a chord with every writer who faces their editing nemesis. We fascinated readers follow Richard’s trail through the sixties and seventies encountering the famous and ‘should have been’ famous characters from the British and international theatre and movie world. Crane takes us inside the Edinburgh Fringe festival, where year after year his plays won Fringe First awards. A breeding ground for new playwright’s, actors, and directors, the reviewers flocked to Edinburgh to find who was hot on the Fringe. The top critic at that time was Harold Hobson, who struck fear into the hearts of any company who watched his wheel chair enter the theatre. Hobson’s reviews shone a spotlight on promising new playwrights such as Osbourne, Beckett, Stoppard and Crane. In one review, under Crane’s leadership, Bradford was once called the “the most active student theatre in the country.” His plays range from delving into the lives of the Bronte’s in Thunder, through to the story of Crippen to the musical extravaganzas of Pied, Tom Brown and Mutiny (on the Bounty). Many of which made the journey to London’s West End theatre. Ghost Boy is a must for any student of British theatre, and indeed anybody who enjoys well shaped characters, hilarious and touching scenes, crafted by one of Britain’s best.

[Gaydon Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

For someone like me, who was around in the British theatre in the 60s and 70s, this was a most fascinating read. Our paths did cross when I was working at the Arts theatre in London, and two shows in which Richard was involved came in. “The Rasputin Show” talked about here. The other “ Venus and Superkid” was a quite wonderful musical written for children by Richard himself.

I read this autobiography in2 days. A dense book, brilliantly written, about his early life and that of a young actor in the 60s. Blisteringly honest.

[Ralph Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished Ghost Boy yesterday and now emerge from full immersion in the 1960s/ 1970s theatre world, Jamaica, boarding school, sex and religion.
Congratulations Mr Crane that is one amazing feat of memory there and a marvellous reconstruction of your youth, honest, funny and poetic. I really enjoyed it