John Godber

John Harry Godber (born 18 May 1956) is an English dramatist, known mainly for his observational comedies. In the Plays and Players Yearbook for 1993 he was calculated as the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. Godber has been creative director of the Theatre Royal Wakefield since 2011. He has a wife and two children.

Biography

Godber was born in Upton, West Yorkshire, near Pontefract. He trained as a teacher of drama at Bretton Hall College, affiliated to the University of Leeds, and became artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre Company in 1984. Before venturing into plays, he was head of drama at Minsthorpe High School, the school that he had attended as a student, and later wrote for the TV series Brookside and Grange Hill. Whilst at Minsthorpe he taught future actors Adrian Hood (Preston Front, Up n Under film) and Chris Walker (Doctors, Coronation Street). A 1993 survey for 'Plays and Players' magazine cited Godber as the third most performed playwright in the UK, after Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. In 2005 he won two BAFTAs for 'Odd Squad', written and directed on location in Hull and screened by BBC children's television. His plays are performed across the world; Bouncers being the most popular.