This week of my literature course has been something of a transformative experience. Frankly, I fell in love: back in love with literature, my degree, and newly with the dazzling work of Shelagh Delaney.
As I sat in Caffè Nero, on an average Sunday, ready to tackle another course text I had left painstakingly until the last minute, I found myself surprisingly moved by Delaney’s 1958 play A Taste of Honey. There I was, in a coffee shop, shedding a tear over the text I had only picked up because my course insisted.
With the volume of literature I consume for my degree, I can honestly say it is rare to have such a visceral reaction to what I am reading. A Taste of Honey stirred something within me. Its raw depictions of working-class Manchester, troubled portrayals of maternal love, and daring discussions of race and sexuality affected me deeply. The play’s singularity startled me; in the words of Jeanette Winterson, “who else, in 1958, was writing about an unmarried pregnant teenager, her gay friend, a gentle, sexy black sailor, and a single mother?” For all its comic elements, Shelagh Delaney’s gritty drama is a poignant reflection of 1950s Northern England. Perhaps I had such an emotional reaction because much of my family also comes from the North-West, or perhaps, as a young woman, I connected with the characters personally. Above all, however, I think it is largely down to Delaney’s sheer talent and craftsmanship.
Salford-born Shelagh Delaney was just nineteen when A Taste of Honey was completed and performed for the first time. Surrounded by a growing movement of “angry young men”, Delaney stands out both as a female playwright and one whose work is arguably imbued with resilience more than anger. Her kitchen-sink realism is honest and bleak at times but not despairingly pessimistic. The characters of Jo and Helen in A Taste of Honey adopt an attitude of just “getting on with it” rather than lamenting the world around them for the entire play.
After I had finished the play and began researching Shelagh Delaney herself, I was met with the strangest feeling that I had seen her before. It was uncanny. Where did I know her from? As I delved deeper, I found my answer. Before me was the familiar cover of The Smiths’ compilation album “Louder Than Bombs”, Shelagh Delaney staring up at me from behind a haze of orange. Beneath it was a quote from Morrissey, admitting that “at least 50 per cent of my reason for writing can be blamed on Shelagh Delaney.” I could barely contain my delight. As a fan of The Smiths, I was astonished to discover that the woman whose work had just brought me to tears in public was the inspiration for some of my favourite songs. It makes total sense, of course, that Delaney’s oeuvre influenced Morrissey’s disaffected, irony-fuelled repertoire. Suffice it to say that I plan to have The Smiths blasting in my headphones as I write my essay on A Taste of Honey.
I would like to thank Dr Hannah Simpson for a wonderful week of lectures on post-war theatre and A Taste of Honey. This week reminded me why I chose to study literature and its power to evoke emotional, personal reactions from all of us. If anything, my experience with A Taste of Honey will prompt me to be a little more open-minded with the rest of the texts on my course. I would never have known I was about to discover one of the best things I have ever read. In the space of a week, Shelagh Delaney has become one of my literary heroes.
Image “‘A Taste of Honey’ – Shelagh Delaney” by no22a is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.