Claire Luckham

01 January 1944

Claire Luckham's career as a playwright was launched in 1976, when the feminist theatre group Monstrous Regiment selected Scum (a play on which she and her husband collaborated) to open their first season. Her plays often make use of songs and monologues. Her best-known piece, Trafford Tanzi, which began its life in Liverpool pubs two years after Scum, features a theatrical wrestling match between husband and wife over social and domestic roles. Other, historical plays take famous women as their subjects: Fanny Kemble (1990), Anne Boleyn (1998), and Catherine Cookson (2005).

Milestones

1944

CL was born in Kenya.

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.

April 1976

The feminist theatre troupe Monstrous Regiment launched its first season with Scum: Death, Destruction and Dirty Washing, a play collaboratively written by CL , her husband, Chris Bond , and the company.

Hanna, Gillian, editor. Monstrous Regiment. Four Plays and a Collective Celebration. Nick Hern Books.

xxxvi, xiii

Llewellyn-Jones, Margaret. “Claiming a Space: 1969-78”. British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958: A Critical Handbook, edited by Trevor Griffiths and Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, Open University Press, pp. 26-46.

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.

1978

CL 's hit play about a female wrestler, Tuebrook Tanzi, The Venus Flytrap (later performed and published under the title Trafford Tanzi), was first presented in Liverpool pubs by the Everyman Theatre Company .

Griffiths, Trevor. “Waving not Drowning: The Mainstream, 1979-88”. British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958: A Critical Handbook, edited by Trevor Griffiths and Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, Open University Press, pp. 47-76.

Reinelt, Janelle. “Beyond Brecht: Britain’s New Feminist Drama”. Feminist Theatre and Theory, edited by Helene Keyssar, St Martin’s Press, pp. 25-48.

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.

May 2013

CLlightly updated her play Tanzi Libre for production at the Southwark Playhouse .

Billington, Michael. “Tanzi Libre — review”. The Guardian, p. 45.

Biography

Birth and Childhood

1944

CL was born in Kenya.

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.