Robin Chapman
Encyclopedia
Biography
Chapman began his career as an actor at Cambridge (he played HamletHamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
in the ADC’s centenary production and was president of the Marlowe Society
Marlowe Society
The Marlowe Society is a Cambridge University theatre club for Cambridge students. It is dedicated to achieving a high standard of student drama in Cambridge...
) before holding a spear at Stratford-Upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
, working in repertory and then joining Joan Littlewood
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...
’s revolutionary Theatre Workshop
Theatre Workshop
Theatre Workshop is a theatre group noted for their director, Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company...
where he turned to writing. Among his stage plays are High Street China, Guests and One of Us. His television plays have won awards from the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
and the Writers Guild
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
as well as a Bafta nomination. He edited, with an introduction, The City and the Court, a collection of five Jacobean comedies.
He enjoyed a long career in television, favoured by Granada TV during its early days. His best known work includes Spindoe
Spindoe
Spindoe is a British television series which was shown on ITV in the spring of 1968. It was named after the lead character, Alec Spindoe, a South London gangster; the plot of the series showed how Spindoe re-established his gangland empire after he had been supplanted during a term of imprisonment,...
(1968), the controversial Big Breadwinner Hog
Big Breadwinner Hog
Big Breadwinner Hog is a British television thriller serial devised by Robin Chapman, produced by Granada TV and transmitted in eight parts, starting at 9.00pm on 11 April 1969 on the ITV network. It portrayed the ruthless rise through the criminal underworld of the trendy young London gangster...
(1969) and many adaptations, including M.R. James' Lost Hearts, Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
, Eyeless in Gaza
Eyeless in Gaza
Eyeless in Gaza is a bestselling novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1936. The title originates from a phrase in John Milton's Samson Agonistes:The chapters of the book are not ordered chronologically...
and a considerable number of expansions on Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...
's short stories for Tales of the Unexpected
Tales of the Unexpected
Tales of the Unexpected may refer to:*Tales of the Unexpected , a 1950s-1960s comic book*Tales of the Unexpected , a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl...
. Single plays for television include two entries in Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
and Blunt (1987), a look at the Cambridge spies.
His ten published novels are: A Waste of Public Money, My Vision's Enemy, Big Breadwinner Hog, Christoferus, Wartimes (two novellas in one volume), The Secret of the World, The Duchess's Diary, Sancho's Golden Age and Pasamonte's Life. These last three titles form a trilogy extending the lives and experiences of characters found in Don Quixote. Reviewing the first book of the trilogy The Duchess’s Diary in the Times Literary Supplement E.C. Riley said that it "shows a truer understanding of Cervantes than twenty books of criticism" while Karl Miller in the London Review of Books acclaimed Chapman’s "learned and yet fully animate invention".
Chapman's latest novel is Shakespeare's Don Quixote - a novel in dialogue featuring Shakespeare, Fletcher and Cervantes
Cervantes
-People:*Alfonso J. Cervantes , mayor of St. Louis, Missouri*Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 16th-century man of letters*Ignacio Cervantes, Cuban composer*Jorge Cervantes, a world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation...
as they scrutinise a version of the lost play Cardenio, co-starring Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
Sancho Panza
Sancho Panza is a fictional character in the novel Don Quixote written by Spanish author Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1605. Sancho acts as squire to Don Quixote, and provides comments throughout the novel, known as sanchismos, that are a combination of broad humour, ironic Spanish proverbs,...
as presented in a fringe theatre today.