Overview

Bernard Kops (1926-2024) emerged out of the fifties ‘angry young man’ explosion and quickly established himself as a one-man opposition to the intellectual and political hypocrisies which engulfed the theatre Establishment of that chaotic era. Shalom Bomb takes its name from the author’s poem, which expresses his anguish at living in a dangerous world. Kops was winner of the Time Out award for Best Play of 1993 for Dreams of Anne Frank. His plays are informed by his childhood poverty and also by the Second World War that followed, which none of his Dutch-Jewish relatives survived.

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9781840021127

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Reviews

A white-knuckle ride through his life with Kops at your shoulder - always disarmingly honest, infuriating, suicidally optimistic and a brilliant companion Joanna Lumley 'Kops allows life to flow over him, never losing his sense of sheer delight, in its size, its possibilities and its outrageousness.' The Guardian 'A writer of outstanding talent.' The Sunday Times 'Aboundingly honest, aboundingly alive.' Times Literary Supplement

Author Information

Bernard Kops (1926-2024) was born in the East-end of London in 1926; into stark poverty and political chaos. He was one of Britain's leading playwrights. The youngest of seven children of an immigrant Dutch-Jewish family, Kops left school at thirteen during the Blitz. He tried his hand at acting and the second hand book trade, drifting through the then-bohemian world of Soho and won sudden, unexpected fame in 1957 with his East End play The Hamlet of Stepney Green. This was drama steeped in the Yiddish theatrical tradition: a sweet-and-sour comedy including brilliant poetry set to music, the play portrayed a dying working-class community through the frustrating relationship between an ailing father and his adult son. He was hailed for it by the critics of the day as a significant contribution to the-then fashion in England for 'kitchen-sink' dramas. It has been performed all over the world. His play about the anti-Semitic poet Ezra Pound was produced first at the Half Moon theatre with Ian MacDiarmid giving one of his finest performances as Ezra. Playing Sinatra, another of his favourite plays has also been produced around the world. It had an incredible reception when it went to Warehouse Croydon and Greenwich Theatre, and opened in April 2012 in Washington D.C. In all, he wrote more than 40 plays, nine novels and two autobiographies. He also ran a master-class for playwrights. ""I would rate Bernard Kops with Sean O' Casey and Arthur Miller. As a poet, he ranks with the other great European poet/playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca: the same passion, directness and lyrical intensity. His poems about nuclear war, about the Holocaust (in which many of his family perished) and more recently about his love for his wife Erica and his immediate family, will be remembered for their shapely form and their personal force. He is a worthy literary descendant of the First World War poet Isaac Rosenberg.'"" - Michael Kustow

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