ABSTRACT
In the mid-1960s, John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy still lived mostly in Kirbymoorside, though they spent time in the summer on the island in Lough Carrib. In 1965, The Observer called John Arden ‘the most enigmatic figure in the theatre today’, and noted that he was ‘totally immune to London’s giddy glamour’. Arden admits in the film that part of him would like to be free to live alone, to read and write as he would like to, with no other responsibilities. In the television film John Arden – Playwright, one of the most effective sequences shows D’Arcy rehearsing their play, Ars Longa Vita Brevis, with a group of Girl Guides in Kirbymoorside. Arden and D’Arcy’s next joint project was Friday’s Hiding, a deliberate attempt to capitalize on Ars Longa Vita Brevis.
