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Stephen Jeffreys was born in London and first attracted critical attention with his study of a stunt man on the skids Like Dolls or Angels (1977), which won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award at the National Student Drama Festival.

He helped to set up the touring company Pocket Theatre Cumbria and wrote several plays for them including his adaptation of Hard Times (1982), which has been given many productions all over the world. His Carmen 1936, performed by the Communicado, won him a second Fringe First in 1984 and ran at the Tricycle Theatre in London. This was followed by Returning Fire (1985), a monologue to welcome Halley's Comet, and The Garden of Eden (1986), a community play about nationalized beer performed by the people of Carlisle.

His comedy Valued Friends played to two sell-out runs at Hampstead Theatre in 1989 and 1990 and won him the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Most Promising Playwright. This was followed by a Jacobean tragicomedy, The Clink, for Paines Plough, for whom he was Arts Council writer in-residence from 1987-1989. He adapted A Jovial Crew for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the instigation of Max Stafford-Clark with whom he has written a film script, A Neutral State. In 1993 A Going Concern also played a sellout run at Hampstead Theatre. In 1994/5 The Libertine, Jeffrey's raunchy play about the Earl of Rochester, was staged at the Royal Court Theatre and won great popular acclaim.

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by Callum
I'll see your library, and raise you a google...

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