Factory Birds
The Fair Maid of the West
The Family Reunion
Lynn Farleigh
George Farquhar
David Farr
Farrah
Nicholas Farrell
Mia Farrow
Fashion
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Faust
Ray Fearon
Michael Feast
Jules Feiffer
Emma Fielding
Joseph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Peter Flannery
James Fleet
Susan Fleetwood
John Fletcher
Flight
The Fool
Footfalls
John Ford
Oliver Ford Davies
The Forest
Emilia Fox
Philip Franks
Paul Freeman
Geoffrey Freshwater
Max Frisch
Frozen Assets
Christopher Fry
Athol Fugard
English playwright
The son of a Devon squire, John Ford was baptised at Ilsington in 1586. He studied law at the Inns of Court and started to write plays in collaboration with Dekker and Rowley. The RSC staged The Witch of Edmonton, the finest of their joint works, in 1981 at The Other Place. Ford followed his own muse after 1625, writing for the King's Men at the Blackfriars and the company at the Phoenix in Drury Lane. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Broken Heart and Perkin Warbeck were rediscovered as classics in the 20th century, but his other surviving works—The Lover's Melancholy (1629), Love's Sacrifice (1633), The Fancies Chaste and Noble (1638), and The Lady's Trial (1639)—are not well known and remain tantalising prospects for the RSC at the Swan.
His most popular play, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, a dark thriller about sibling incest, is frequently revived. Ford's melancholy view of life is most subtly expressed in the suffering people of The Broken Heart. T.S. Eliot writes appreciatively of Ford's distinctively elegant blank verse in his Selected Essays. He is a master of shocking, surprising endings.
1975 TOP: John Barton/Barry Kyle
'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1632)
1977 TOP: Ron Daniels
1991 Swan: David Leveaux
The Witch of Edmonton, co-written with Dekker and Rowley (1621)
1981 TOP: Barry Kyle
The Broken Heart (1629)
1994 Swan: Michael Boyd
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