Ray Cooney: biography and creativity

2025 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2025-01-24 17:46

Raymond Cooney was born on May 30, 1932 in London. He graduated from Dulwich College - one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the UK. Married to Linda Dixon since 1962. They have two sons. The eldest, Danny, lives with his wife and two children in Australia, the youngest, Michael, is also a screenwriter. In 1995, Cooney published commentary on his own plays.

Career start

As a teenager, Cooney began his career in theater. At the age of 14, he entered the stage of the Palace Theatre. It is safe to say that he absorbed the smell of backstage from childhood. Ray Cooney has been with theater companies from Worthing to Blackburn since 1948, honing his theater skills.

In 1956 he graduated from the Whitehall Theater with Brian Ricks. In 1961, he wrote the first play "Fortune Hunter" in collaboration with Tony Hilton. With him, he also wrote the script for the comedy “What a section!”. The beginning of a career as a playwright brought West End Theater 17 premieres. In London, he directed more than thirty performances as director and producer Ray Cooney. His plays are listed below:

• They're Playing Our Song.
• Bodies.
• Clouds.
• Whose Life is it Anyway?(“Whose life is this anyway?”).
• Chicago ("Chicago").
• Duet for One.

Comedy Theatre

Ray Cooney organized the Theater of Comedy in London, under his leadership West End stars performed on stage, and the newly revived plays were a resounding success. Cooney himself often played on stage and wrote more than twenty new plays, including:

• Funny Money.
• Out of Order ("No. 13").
• Passion Play.

Cooney's comedies are distinguished by the alignment of the plot and some frivolity of the language. Heroes often pretend to be someone they are not, and more and more confuse the plot. And at some point, the viewer has a feeling that the whole situation is about to become implausible. But Ray Cooney is a master of his craft and feels the viewer. He knows that you will squeeze a little - and it will turn out to be a clumsy job.

According to Ray, the audience also sometimes wants to play fun games. When a spectator goes to see a dramatic performance, no one promises him anything in particular. But comedy is another matter. Here you are promised that you will smile at least twice. And indeed it is. Cooney does not have light comedies where the audience just laughs, his comedies are “laughter through tears.”

Global recognition

What can we say about the recognition of this great master of comedy, if his plays have been translated into more than forty languages and are played in theaters around the world! Huge success andRay Cooney's play "Too Married Taxi Driver" won recognition. In London's West End, she lasted more than nine years. The film adaptations of Cooney's comedies in Russian are listed below:

• "Too married taxi driver";
• "Funny Money";
• "Clinical case";
• "Number 13".

Prizes and awards

The play "Number 13" was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 1999, and in 2000 it was recognized as the best comedy in Europe. Too Married Taxi Driver (1983) was named the longest-running comedy in England and entered the top 100 plays in the UK. For services in the field of drama, Ray Cooney was awarded a high award - the Order of the British Empire in 2005.

He came up with incredible plots and denouements for his plays, and the action sometimes unfolds in such a rapid rhythm that the viewer sometimes even has no time to take a breath. No wonder he was called the master of farce in the theatrical world. The way it is. As an actor and playwright, Cooney has done a lot to make audiences laugh for decades.