Afore Night Come is a 1962 British play written by David Rudkin, first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company.[1] The subject matter of the play meant that any production in a public theatre would probably have been vetoed by the Lord Chamberlain, so the RSC mounted the play at the members-only Arts Theatre.[2] As a result of the widespread critical acclaim that the play received, Rudkin was awarded the Evening Standard Drama Award for most promising playwright of 1962.[3]
The play is set in an orchard in the Black Country region of England's Midlands. Two young men and a tramp arrive one morning looking for work picking fruit, but as the day wears on there is violence and bloodshed. Rudkin harks back to a pagan era where the crops were fertilised by human blood. Kenneth Tynan, reviewing the play in The Observer, wrote "Not since Look Back In Anger has a playwright made a debut more striking than this."
When writing programme notes for the revival of the play at the Young Vic in 2001, Rudkin explained that he was afraid that no-one would ever stage the play, firstly because of its coarse language, but also "because I needed to thread through this dark story a counter-element of desire and love to off-set the rage and hatred - and there weren't any girls working in this company, and in any case the rage and hatred were all very male, the desire had to be male as well, inevitably making it have to be homosexual, which according to the laws of the time meant that the play could never be publicly staged. And the logical moral outcome of the play's process would be a climactic act of violence of a sort that I don't think had been done on an English stage since the Jacobeans. So I had to choose: back off and not follow the logical implications of the play; or go through with it and be damned. If I was going to be a writer, there wasn't any choice."
AforeNightCome is a 1962 British play written by David Rudkin, first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The subject matter of the play meant that...
Carborundum and AforeNightCome), the 1964 'Dirty Plays' season (Victor, the premiere production of Marat/Sade and the revival of AforeNightCome) and the...
Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing at the Arts Theatre in AforeNightCome. According to the theatre critic Michael Coveney, Jones was "immediately...
amateur theatre productions. Following the success of his first play AforeNightCome (1962), Rudkin translated works by Aeschylus, Roger Vitrac, the libretto...
Henry Livings for Stop It Whoever You Are 1962 – David Rudkin for AforeNightCome 1963 – Charles Wood for Cockade and James Saunders for Next Time I'll...
taught at North Bromsgrove High School in the early 1960s. His play AforeNightCome (1962) was inspired by his experiences in the countryside close to...
Award for Outstanding Newcomer for his production of David Rudkin's AforeNightCome at the Young Vic. In 2004, Norris won another Evening Standard Award...
Gate 1995 Hunting Scenes From Lower Bavaria by Martin Sperr The Gate AforeNightCome, Entertaining Mr Sloane Clwyd Caravan National Theatre of Norway Kiss...
Spike Milligan and John Antrobus – The Bed-Sitting Room David Rudkin – AforeNightCome Peter Shaffer – The Private Ear/The Public Eye (double bill) David...
the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). He appeared in David Rudkin's AforeNightCome, John Whiting's The Devils and as Alexander in Troilus and Cressida...
record-breaking three hours leading to an unprecedented second show (named "The NightAfore") being announced for 30 December. Over eight years following the release...
nation, but also managing to come first in Heraklion and Lasithi overall strengthening their power in the countryside. The afore-mentioned failure triggered...
he comes." Wearit is the mither that has a stoorie wean, A wee, stumpie, stousie, that canna rin his lane, That has a battle aye wi' sleep afore he'll...
ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had...
but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit. Her husband Joseph, honest man, hed nae mind tae affront her afore the warld...
gladness, as in the feast of the tabernacles, remembering that not long afore they had held the feast of the tabernacles" (2 Macc 10:6). Advent is considered...
for me, and at my coming she said, "Mr. Kingston, I hear I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time...
open ground towards the two afore-named lords. Sir Henry de Beaumont called to his men: "Let us wait a little; let them come on; give them room". "Sir,"...
your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore his eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted also...
Baggins's Samwise Gamgee, and Harry Potter's Ron Weasley, as well as the afore-mentioned Sancho Panza and Doctor Watson, are notable sidekicks from fiction...
and attached as the B-side of Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover." Excepting the afore-mentioned single, Epic canned the Larry Rogers-helmed album. Epic belatedly...
but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit. Her husband Joseph, honest man, hed nae mind tae affront her afore the warld...
niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!' 'I wonder how you can dare to stand there in idleness and worse, when...
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