The Man Who Came to Read the Metre

A personal memoir of how Tony Harrison influenced both my work personally and my generation of playwrights in general. From a meeting in Newcastle Upon Tyne when I was a teenager to his guidance as a beacon for an engaged theatre that dealt with power and class I trace his journey which like mine was from a strong Northern working class community to the main stages of the National Theatre. His example of integrating the traditions of Popular Theatre with the Classical, the tribulations of being a working-class scholar and the ambitions of his formal and thematic concerns have been exemplary not only to me but to my generation of theatre makers.