ABSTRACT

In 1980 John Arden was fifty years old. His father had died the previous year, and now he realized – not necessarily with pleasure – that his active career in the professional theatre was effectively over. His life and his work were forced to take a different turn. In 1980 Arden was commissioned to adapt Don Quixote for radio, though he had never read the book. In 1982 two more radio plays by Arden were broadcast by the BBC. The first was Garland for a Hoar Head, a dramatic celebration of the Tudor poet, John Skelton, and surely one of Arden’s most spirited works. Arden always delighted in Skelton’s work, and as writers the two are not unalike despite the vastly different ages in which they wrote.