Clive Exton 1930-2007

TV writer Clive Exton has died at the age of 77. Perhaps best know for his sometimes controversial work for ABC's Armchair Theatre in the 1960s, he also wrote numerous episodes of shows such as Poirot and Jeeves and Wooster.

Clive was also joint Deputy Chair of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain (along with Michael Baker) from 1991-1993 when Allan Scott was President.

Several obituaries have paid tribute to his lengthy career.

In The Independent, Anthony Hayward writes that: "Exton wrote only a handful of plays for the theatre. 'I like writing for television because it's such an effective way of forcing action out of a character,' he said. 'The play that shows people being forced by their natures into a conflict that they can't avoid - that's the sort of play I like to do.'"

In The Guardian, Dennis Barker says that Exton "won fame with his highly individual mixture of black comedy and oblique social criticism. Focused around six early plays on ABC Television's Armchair Theatre series, his work was, with some justification in the early 1960s, regarded as ahead of its time."

The Times writes that: "Emerging as a dramatist in the ate 1950s, Clive Exton was hailed, along with such writers as Alun Owen and Harold Pinter, as one of most distinctive talents writing for television. He even came to be called the television playwright."

Article published 03.09.07