David Pownall


David Pownall FRSL is a British playwright and prolific radio dramatist performed internationally, and novelist translated into several languages.

Life and career

David Pownall was born in Liverpool. He graduated from Keele University in 1960.
He worked as a personnel officer with the Ford Motor Company, Dagenham, Essex, from 1960-63. In 1963, Pownall moved to Zambia to take up a post as the personnel manager at Anglo American PLC and lived and worked there until 1969; he had several early plays produced there.
Returning to England to write full-time, he became the resident writer of the Century Theatre touring group, from 1970-72. He was resident writer of the Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster, from 1972–75, and had several plays produced by them. His plays reflected the local environment, as well as meditations on the plays of Shakespeare.
He helped found the Paines Plough Theatre, first based in Coventry, where he was resident writer from 1975-80. In 1977, his play Richard III, Part Two, first produced by Paines Plough, was taken to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Being deeply interested in music, he wrote several plays related to the challenges of composers, both in terms of personal creativity, and, in Master Class, working within the oppressive political environment of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
Pownall has written plays for radio, as well as material for performance by children and college students.
David Pownall's wife is a photographer; the couple have a son.

Legacy and honours

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