The Cellar and the Almond Tree (1970) and Emma's Time (1970). The content of this body of work made John Russell Taylor regard Mercer as the most political of British dramatists of this period. Let's Murder Vivaldi, which originated in the BBC's Wednesday Play series, received a stage production at the King's Head theatre club in 1972. In 1970, Mercer contributed White Poem – a monologue for a white Rhodesian racialist – to a Sharpeville massacre commemoration. Mercer wrote the screenplay for the Alain Resnais film Providence (1977), in which John Gielgud portrays an elderly, dying writer. The film won a César Award. Private life In 1967, Mercer met a German actress, Maria Machado with whom he later had his first child, Maya Mercer. A long-term heavy drinker, Mercer died in August 1980 after suffering a heart attack in Haifa, Israel, where he was living with his Israeli wife Dafna and their daughter Rebecca. As fictional character Mercer is depicted as Malcolm Sloman in the Trevor Griffiths play The Party (1973). In 1982, The Arcata Promise, a stage adaptation of the 1974 television play, was produced by Brockman Seawell and premiered in New York in 1982, starring Brian Murray. Works Where the Difference Begins (1961) A Climate of Fear (1962) Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment (1962) The Birth of a Private Man (1963) A Way of Living (1963) For Tea on Sunday (1963) Ride a Cock Horse (1965) The Governor's Lady (1965) And Did Those Feet (1965) Belcher's Luck (1966) In Two Minds (1967) Let's Murder Vivaldi (1968) The Parachute (1968) On the Eve of Publication (1969) The Cellar and the Almond Tree (1970) Emma's Time (1970) After Haggerty (1970) Flint (1970) The Bankrupt Afternoon at the Festival The Arcata Promise (1974) Duck Song (1974) Shooting the Chandelier (1977) Cousin Vladimir (1978) The Ragazza (1978) The Arcata Promise Find Me Huggy Bear – originally a short story in Jon Silkin's magazine Stand! References External links Museum of Broadcast Communications - page on David Mercer TV Cream on Mercer's 1960s television work 1928 births 1980 deaths 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English male writers Alumni of King's College, Newcastle Alumni of University College, Durham Best British Screenplay BAFTA Award winners English male dramatists and playwrights People from Wakefield 20th-century screenwriters