Lemon Jo – Taylor Ferguson Jimmy – Thuso Lekwape Peter – Josh McConville Geoffrey – Tom Anson Mesker Adaptation for BBC Radio 3 cast (2004) Helen – Siobhan Finneran Jo – Beth Squires Peter – Charles Lawson The Boy – Richard Mylan Geoffrey – Andrew Sheridan 1970 BBCTV Production 20th. September-4th. October. Three-part, BBCTV mini-series, with Diana Dors, made for schools. 1958 critical reception Writing of the original production, Milton Shulman in the Evening Standard found the play immature and unconvincing, and others were similarly derogatory about the author's age, with the Daily Mail writing that it tasted not of honey, but "of exercise books and marmalade." However, Kenneth Tynan wrote "Miss Delaney brings real people on to her stage, joking and flaring and scuffling and, eventually, out of the zest for life she gives them, surviving” ; while Lindsay Anderson in Encore called the play "a work of complete, exhilarating originality," giving "a real escape from the middlebrow, middle-class vacuum of the West End." Popular references The play was admired by Morrissey of the band The Smiths, who used Delaney's photo on the album cover artwork for Louder Than Bombs. A photograph of Shelagh Delaney appears on the cover for The Smiths' single "Girlfriend in a Coma". "This Night Has Opened My Eyes", an earlier Smiths song, is based on the play and includes a paraphrase of Geoffrey's line to Jo near the end: "The dream has gone but the baby is real." Morrissey's lyrics include other borrowings from Delaney, such as "river the colour of lead" and "I'm not happy and I'm not sad", both of which are spoken by the lead character Jo. Other quotations and near-quotations appear in several other songs by The Smiths and Morrissey. The play is referred to by Akira the Don in the title track on the album Thieving (2008), in which it appears to awaken him to literature in a school English lesson. It appears in On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan as a film watched by the main characters. See also Delaney, Shelagh. A Taste of Honey. Methuen Student Edition with commentary and notes. London: Methuen Publishing, 1982. References External links 1958 plays British plays adapted into films 1950s debut plays Lancashire in fiction LGBT-related plays Methuen Publishing books Plays about race and ethnicity Salford Social realism Works about teenage pregnancy West End plays