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The Radio 3 Boards > General Chat > News And Current Affairs > Obituary Pages > R.I.P. Simon Gray
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Author Topic: R.I.P. Simon Gray  (Read 245 times)
Ron Dough
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« on: 19:28:32, 07-08-2008 »
The death has been announced of Simon Gray, the playwright:

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gn4ia05TaTl1cQu3u009XO5GCNPQ

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2008/08/remembering_simon_gray_1936200.html

R.I.P
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Stanley Stewart
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Well...it was 1935
« Reply #1 on: 20:43:53, 07-08-2008 »
  This is sad news, indeed, Ron.     It is only a month or two since I finished reading Vol 3 of his witty "The Smoking Diaries".     Another rough diamond but such a versatile talent.   I've just left my desk to check my pile of off-air videos, waiting for transfer to DVD, and I see that 'Unnatural Pursuits' is in the heap.    In due course, I have one or two anecdotes to tell about Simon Gray when I used to go backstage to see my friend, Ben Whitrow, who was playing in "Otherwise Engaged".   This, you may recall, is set when Alan Bates is trying to listen to "Parsifal" and is thwarted at every turn. 

Bless him.  May he rest in peace.
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Swan_Knight
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« Reply #2 on: 20:55:56, 07-08-2008 »
I love 'Otherwise Engaged'.  And 'Butley'.  And 'The Rear Column'.  But, above all, I love 'Quartermaine's Terms'.

An invariably witty and generous man, I'm very sad that there will be no more from him.  His description of Harold Pinter as dressing like a successful undertaker always makes me chortle.
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...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
Morticia
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« Reply #3 on: 20:58:05, 07-08-2008 »
Ah, sad news indeed. I hope he is causing a stir wherever he may be now. R.I.P.  Simon Gray.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #4 on: 18:30:28, 09-08-2008 »
Quote from: Morticia on 20:58:05, 07-08-2008
Ah, sad news indeed. I hope he is causing a stir wherever he may be now.
Do you think heaven has an outside smoking area? I wonder if it rains there too ...
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
Stanley Stewart
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Well...it was 1935
« Reply #5 on: 20:03:41, 09-08-2008 »
In the three volumes of his Smoking Diaries, Simon Gray gets tetchier about the shrinking opportunties to smoke, throughout the world.    Even grasping an opportunity in the alleyways of a New York theatre, his enjoyment would be wrecked by hearing uncomplimentary comments about himself, or his plays.

                      Now laughing friends deride
                      tears I cannot hide
                      So I smile and say
                      when a lovely flame dies
                      smoke gets in your eyes                  Jerome Kern
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #6 on: 21:12:42, 09-08-2008 »
Of course you will be able to smoke in heaven.  The difference is that it will not smell foul to everyone else.  Ciggies that smell of incense.  (Alton Abbey's Rosa Mystica is a long time favourite of mine.)
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
pim_derks
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« Reply #7 on: 17:38:05, 11-08-2008 »
The death of Simon Gray was featured in Last Word on Radio 4. Here's a link to the website with listen back option:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/lastword.shtml

Life stories of  Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Pauline Baynes were also included.
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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