marxist playwright. John Arden was a creative force in British theatre from the late 1950s to the 1970s. Born in Barnsley, he was educated through the Public school system and spent three years as a conscript in Scotland. He began to write plays at university, where he studied architecture.

His early work 'The Waters of Babylon' premiered at the young Royal Court Theatre as a Sunday night production in 1957. The influence of his work helped define the identity of the English Stage Company, who performed many of his plays in the following years, but his critical acclaim was seldom matched at the box office.

In a manner reminiscent of Brecht, Arden's dramas employ songs, poetry, and visceral realism to make sharp, political points. His plays include 'Sergeant Musgrave's Dance' (1959), 'the workhouse donkey' (1963), 'The Island of the Mighty' (1972), 'The Little Grey Home in the West' (1978), and a veiled attack on the British occupation of Northern Ireland, 'Vandaleur's Folly' (1981). He has also written two novels and a book of essays, 'To Present the Pretense' (1978).

His most recognised work is probably 'Serjeant Musgrave's Dance' from 1959. Produced at the Royal Court the cast included Ian Bannen but it was not a popular success, despite being recognised as one of the major plays of its time. It concerns a small bunch of soldiers who invade a bleak mining town the north of England in the 1880s supposedly to conduct a recruitment drive. But the soldiers are actually deserters, and Serjeant Musgrave, their leader, has become rabidly anti-war, with the zeal of a 'born-again' religious convert. This type of political moralising is at the heart of Arden's writing. It is hard today to see 'Serjeant Musgrave's Dance' as anything other than a passionately pacifist, anti-imperialist play.