James David Rudkin (born 29 June 1936) is an English playwright . Early life Rudkin was born in London. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, he was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Greats at St Catherine's College, Oxford. Beginning to write during national service in the Royal Corps of Signals, Rudkin taught Latin, Greek and music at North Bromsgrove High School in Worcestershire until 1964, while also directing amateur theatre productions. Career Following the success of his first play Afore Night Come (1962), Rudkin translated works by Aeschylus, Roger Vitrac, the libretto of Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron, and wrote the book to the Western Theatre Ballet's Sun into Darkness (Sadlers Wells 1963) and the libretto for Gordon Crosse's comic opera, The Grace of Todd. Rudkin's major works for the stage include Ashes (1974), The Sons of Light (written in 1965 though not staged until 1975), The Triumph of Death (1981) and The Saxon Shore (1986). His associations with the RSC also led him to translate the Hippolytus of Euripides for the company in 1978, having translated the author's Hecuba for radio three years previously. He has written for television, including The Stone Dance (1963), Children Playing (1967), House of Character (1968) (staged by the Birmingham Rep as No Title in 1974), Blodwen, Home from Rachel's Marriage (1969), Bypass (1972), Atrocity (1973), the Alan Clarke-directed Penda's Fen (1974), and Artemis 81 (1981); for radio, including No Accounting for Taste (1960), Gear Change (1967), Cries from Casement as His Bones are Brought to Dublin (1973) (also staged by the RSC); and for cinema, including François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966). He has also written a volume in the British Film Institute's "Film Classics" series, a 2005 study of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr. Works Stage plays Afore Night Come, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Arts Theatre, directed by Clifford Williams (1962) Burglars, a short children's play originally written for radio, Oval House Theatre (1968) The Filth Hunt, one-act play, InterAction at the Almost Free Theatre (1972) Ashes, Stadsteater Hamburg (1973), Open Space Theatre (1974), staged off-Broadway in 1977 and winner of an Obie award The Sons of Light, Tyneside Theatre Company (1976); revised for the RSC at The Other Place (1977) Sovereignty Under Elizabeth, one-act play, InterAction at the Almost Free Theatre (1977) Hansel and Gretel, RSC, The Other Place (1980) The Triumph of Death, Birmingham Rep