Real Estate

AuthorLouise Page

Louise Page (b 1955)

Playwright, novelist and journalist Louise Page was born in London, but moved to Sheffield as a young girl. She was educated at the University of Birmingham, where she studied Drama and Theatre Arts. In 1979 she became Yorkshire Television's Fellow in Drama and Television at the University of Sheffield. She was awarded the George Devine Award for her play 'Salonika', which was performed at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London in 1982, and was appointed Resident Writer at the Royal Court Theatre (1982-3). She was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Edge Hill University from 2004-2006.

Acknowledged as one of the most prominent English feminist playwrights of her generation, her work is notable for its frank treatment of issues such as personal and political ethics, sexual mores, personal relationships, and death and bereavement. Her play 'Tissue', in particular, broke a taboo when it was first staged in 1978 by addressing the topic of breast cancer. Page takes a broadly socialist stance: her plays of the 1980s, in particular, were highly critical of the exploitation of the working class, and tackled topical issues such as the Thatcherite values of success and the Falklands War. Some of her plays have been hailed for their imaginative staging and for her use of language, which ranges from the lyrical to the colloquial, the latter drawing particularly on speech patterns of northern England. She writes for both television and radio and worked for ten years on BBC Radio 4's long-running radio serial The Archers. She now runs Words4work with her husband, the writer Christopher Hawes, organising seminars and workshops to help businesses improve the standard of their written English.