Nationality British Plays Blue/Orange Spouse Emily McLaughlin | Role Playwright Name Joe Penhall | |
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Occupation Playwright, screenwriter Movies The Road, Some Voices, Enduring Love, Blue/Orange Books Landscape with weapon, Haunted Child, Dumb Show, Pale Horse, 'Some Voices' & 'Pale Hor Similar People John Hillcoat, Roger Michell, Ray Davies, George Maguire, John Dagleish | ||
some voices by joe penhall naturalism and acting
Joe Penhall (born 1967) is a British playwright and screenwriter from London, best known for his award-winning stage play Blue/Orange and the award-winning West End musical Sunny Afternoon.
Contents
- some voices by joe penhall naturalism and acting
- Joe Penhall on the Royal Court Theatre
- Early life
- Career
- Personal life
- Plays
- Film
- TV
- Awards
- References
Joe Penhall on the Royal Court Theatre
Early life
Born in London, Penhall was raised in Australia.
Career
Prior to becoming a playwright, Joe Penhall was a manager of a gourmet pizza restaurant, which, one night, was broken into by a youth gang. This incident proved to be the impetus for his first play "Wild Turkey," which was produced at the Old Red Lion Pub.
Penhall's first major play Some Voices premiered at the Royal Court Theatre's upstairs playing space in London in 1994. It was very well-received, winning the John Whiting Award, and has since been played off-Broadway twice. In 2000 Penhall adapted the play for a film with the same name directed by Simon Cellan Jones, starring Daniel Craig and Kelly Macdonald, which premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight.
Penhall returned to the Royal Court Theatre with his second full-length play Pale Horse, which also played in the Theatre Upstairs and featured Ray Winstone, who had starred in Some Voices. A dark play, Pale Horse tells the story of a bar keeper coming to terms with the sudden death of his wife.
Penhall adapted Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love in 2004 to film starring Rhys Ifans and Daniel Craig. That same year he also wrote the screenplay for BBC2's BAFTA nominated dramatisation of Jake Arnott's novel The Long Firm starring Mark Strong.
In 2000 his play Blue/Orange began its run at the National Theatre, directed by Roger Michell and starring Bill Nighy, Andrew Lincoln and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The play centres on two NHS doctors trying to deal with a sectioned young black schizophrenic patient; it was a huge success, winning Best New Play at the Evening Standard Awards, Laurence Olivier Awards, and at the Critics Circle. It transferred to the West End at the Duchess Theatre the following year. Penhall adapted this play in 2005 for TV with a new cast.
That same year Penhall wrote and directed The Undertaker, his first short film, starring Rhys Ifans and premiering at the London Film Festival.
His follow-up play Dumb Show was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in 2004, focusing on tabloid journalism. It was directed by Terry Johnson. Penhall has called this a 'small light play' as opposed to the 'huge dark play' Blue/Orange.
Landscape With Weapon, about the invention of a weapon of mass destruction, was first performed at the National Theatre in 2007, directed again by Roger Michell and starring Tom Hollander and Julian Rhind-Tutt.
Penhall spent six years working on The Last King of Scotland, even flying to Uganda and meeting Idi Amin's henchmen; however, he requested his name be removed from the film after other writers were brought on board. Penhall adapted Cormac McCarthy's book The Road in 2009 for a film starring Viggo Mortensen; for this he received wide praiseand was named by Variety Magazine as one of their Top Ten Screenwriters to watch.
In 2009 Penhall's detective drama Moses Jones, where he also served as executive producer, was shown on the BBC, winning a BAFTA for make up design and Best Screenplay at the Roma Film Festival in 2009.
In 2011 Penhall returned to the theatre with two plays: Haunted Child, staged at the Royal Court Theatre with Sophie Okonedo, and Birthday, starring Stephen Mangan and directed by long-term collaborator Roger Michell. His first stage musical, Sunny Afternoon, with music and lyrics by Ray Davies premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in May 2014, before transferring to London's West End. The musical won four Laurence Olivier Awards in 2015 including Best New Musical.
Personal life
Penhall is married and lives in London; the couple have two sons together.