Years active 1987–present Books Kurt and Sid Movies The Pianist, Deviation | Role Playwright Name Roy Smiles | |
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Occupation Dramatist, playwright, songwriter Website | ||
An Interview with Roy Smiles, Playwright of Schmucks at The Wilma Theater
Roy Smiles is an English playwright and singer-songwriter from west London. He is also an occasional actor.
Contents
Smiles has written twenty six theatre plays, the best known of which is Kurt and Sid, a 2009 London West End production about the fictional meeting of Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain. His plays have been staged in a number of countries. He has recorded seven self-released albums. His albums Autumn Song and Bremen are released on Native Records.
Career
His first play staged in 1992 at the Battersea Arts Centre, Schmucks was about a fictitious meeting between Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce. He has had twenty five theatre plays staged and six radio plays broadcast since.
In 2002 he played the role of Itzak Heller, a Jewish collaborator, in Roman Polanski's The Pianist.
Smiles stage and radio plays focus largely on biographical subjects such as Lenny Bruce (Schmucks), Janis Joplin (Get It While You Can), the Beyond The Fringe team (Good Evening), Arthur Miller (Reno), George Orwell (Year Of The Rat), Tony Hancock (The Lad Himself), Robert F. Kennedy (The Last Pilgrim), PG Woodhouse (Plum) and the Enola Gay (Bombing People). A number of his plays have debuted or transferred to theatres around the world, such as Pythonesque, the story of the Monty Python team, which opened in South Africa before moving to Edinburgh as part of the Fringe Festival. Ying Tong - A Walk With The Goons, the story of Spike Milligan's nervous breakdown whilst writing The Goon Show, was staged at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2004, transferring the following year to the New Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End before touring the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Year Of The Rat, Ying Tong, Pythonesque and Kurt & Sid are published by Oberon Books.
Plays
A complete list of Smiles’ staged plays, followed by the place and date of their original productions: