Play

Background

Anthony Minghella has written many stage plays, including Child's Play, Whale Music and Made in Bangkok. He was voted Most Promising Playwright in 1984 by the London Theatre Critics, who also gave Made in Bangkok the Best New Play award in 1986. His first film as a writer/director – Truly, Madly, Deeply – was a great success both in Britain and in the US, winning several awards. The English Patient, which he adapted for the screen and directed, has won more than 30 awards, including nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, two Golden Globe awards and six BAFTAs. The Talented Mr Ripley, which Anthony adapted for the screen and directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay, and for seven BAFTAs, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

My unfinished doctoral thesis was on Beckett. Play was the first play I ever directed, in a double bill with Happy Days. There was a time, for five years, when I read Beckett almost on a daily basis. The sense of language and poetry in his writing has been the single biggest influence on me as a writer. – Anthony Minghella

Director interview