Simon Gray

Aug 12 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HE HATED the modern world, or at least he professed to, though he perhaps gained more from its easy ways and lack of conviction than he was prepared to admit, as he swapped his legendary intake of Scotch for three bottles of Champagne a day before finally quitting, while acknowledging his lung cancer by switching to the milder Silk Cut cigarettes.

It was a wonderful performance by a brilliant man – harrumphing about the decline of this country since the charmed 1950s, but, perhaps, in moments alone, smiling quietly at the praise heaped on his memoirs.

To observers who didn’t understand his courage, tenacity and essentially industrious nature, it must have seemed that Simon Gray’s liver and lungs were locked in an eager competition for the finishing line.

And the titles of his recent offerings, The Smoking Diaries (2004), The Year of the Jouncer (2006) and The Last Cigarette (2008) confirmed their feelings, but the libertarian critics, who shared his loathing for the poke-noses, prudes and fake liberals of today’s Britain, were enchanted by the man’s indefatigable spirit.

Unhappily, he was drawn to many people’s attention by controversy in 1995. Stephen Fry had been cast as the traitor George Blake in Gray’s West End production of his own play, Cell Mates. In circumstances never fully explained, Fry quit, despite a promising start and some encouraging reviews, leaving the message on Gray’s answerphone: “I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry”.

Simon Ward replaced Fry, who had fled to Belgium, but the production was doomed.

Gray was born on Hayling Island, Hampshire, but evacuated to Canada during the war, returning to England to attend Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge.

His first successes were as a novelist with Colmain (1963), Simple People (1965), Little Portia (1967) and Breaking Hearts (1997).

But it was as a playwright that he would be acclaimed. Butley (1971) was the most successful of his numerous plays, starring Alan Bates in the lead role as a university professor in the original production.

Among his other plays were Otherwise Engaged, Dog Days, Close of Play, Hidden Laughter and The Late Middle Classes.

Illness plagued Gray’s life after Cell Mates, and he was attended by “grinning” specialists, who informed him that the end was not only near but being accelerated by his ways. He married twice and had two children.

Simon Gray, writer; born October 1, 1936, died August 7, 2008