A number caryl churchill

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‘Many plays confront death. A few deal with the process of dying. Caryl Churchill’s new work manages, in 45 minutes, to encompass both. It not only confirms her ability to experiment with dramatic form but, more importantly, acts as a chilling reminder of our own mortality. While initially it seems slight, I find it’s grown steadily in the mind since I read it.

‘Like Churchill’s more overtly political Far Away (2000), it comes in three distinct, but cunningly linked, segments. In the first part, which gives the play its title, we watch a group of assorted guests reminiscing at an old man’s funeral. A picture gradually emerges of a cat-loving, much-married leftie who could be contentious or kind according to circumstance. This is just the kind of random chat you might hear at any funeral but what is noticeable is the guests’ self-preoccupation and the real dramatic shock comes when, wineglass in hand, they break the fourth wall to announce the precise details of their own deaths.

‘In the second, more daring section, titled After, Churchill projects u

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Caryl Churchill

British playwright (born 1938)

Caryl Lesley Churchill (born 3 September 1938)^[1] is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non-naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes.^[2] Celebrated for works such as Cloud 9 (1979), Top Girls (1982), Serious Money (1987), Blue Heart (1997), Far Away (2000), and A Number (2002), she has been described as "one of Britain's greatest poets and innovators for the contemporary stage".^[3] In a 2011 dramatists' poll by The Village Voice, six out of the 20 polled writers listed Churchill as the greatest living playwright.^[4]

Early life and education

Churchill was born on 3 September 1938 in Finsbury, London, the daughter of Jan Brown, a fashion model and actress,^[5] and Robert Churchill, a political cartoonist.^[6] After the Second World War, her family emigrated to Montreal, Canada; Churchill was ten years old. In Montreal, she attended Trafalgar School for Girls.^&

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Churchill, Caryl

Caryl Churchill was born in London, England in 1938. When she was 10 years old, Churchill moved to Montreal, Canada, with her family. She spent her teenage years there before returning to England in 1957 to study English Language and Literature at Lady Margaret Hall, a women’s college at Oxford University. While studying, she began to write plays; her plays Downstairs (1958) and Easy Death (1961) were produced by student theatre groups.

Churchill married her husband, David Harter, in 1961, and over the next decade, the couple had three sons together. While bringing up her children in the 1960s, Churchill began to write radio plays for the BBC, including The Ants (1962) and Lovesick (1967). She was dissatisfied by her life as a stay-at-home mother of small children, questioning women’s social roles and becoming increasingly ‘politicised’. Her husband, a barrister, took six months’ leave from his work in order to share the bringing up of the family and give Churchill more time to write.

In 1972, Churchill’s first stage play, Owners, was produ