A prolific playwright and author, Allen Saddler, was the West Country drama critic for The Stage during the 1980s and 1990s.
He left school at the age of 14 and, in his own words, educated himself in the public library. He devoured the works of Shaw, became a devotee of London’s left wing Unity Theatre, developed a taste for progressive jazz and revelled in old-time variety.
After the Second World War, he worked in the printing industry, but was determined to become a full-time writer. He produced a number of novels, as well as books for children, including six King and Queen volumes, which were taken up by BBC Television’s Play School.
His stage plays included All Basic Comforts (1977), depicting a group of welfare benefit cheats and staged by the Orchard Theatre Company. Another was Better Dead (1994), a political comedy about a Russian emigre produced at the Exeter and Devon Arts Centre by Western Union.
He also wrote 25 plays for BBC Radio 4, including a eulogy for music hall, Revolution at the Palace (1979). In addition, he capitalised on Michael Williams’ ability to impersonate the variety comedian, Robb Wilton, by writing two series of monologues, also broadcast on Radio 4.
Besides The Stage, he contributed reviews to The Guardian, The Independent and Plays and Players. Looking back on 30 years’ work as a critic, he recalled seeing plays in marquees, shopping malls, ruined castles and a disused railway arch in Exeter. But, during that time, there emerged on what he called his patch the Northcott in Exeter (1967), the Brewhouse in Taunton (1977) and the Theatre Royal, Plymouth (1982).
Major success as a writer eluded him. It once looked as though a thriller he had written was to be made into a £22 million television series starring Twiggy. But union demands about residual fees scuppered the whole deal. He remained characteristically philosophical about the enterprise.
Allen Saddler, who was born Ronald Richards in London on April 15, 1923, died in Totnes, Devon, on December 2 at the age of 88.
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