Over a seven-decade career, Michael Frayn has been acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, journalist, translator & memoirist. From his comedies – including the stage farce Noises Off, and a screenplay for Clockwise starring John Cleese, and the novels Headlong and Skios – to the complex political, historical and scientific themes of his stage plays Democracy and Copenhagen, he has been prolific in a diverse array of genres and subjects. He is also renowned for his stage adaptations of the works of Russian writers including Anton Chekhov. At 92, Michael Frayn advised on a recent revival of Copenhagen for the Hampstead Theatre.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Archive used:

Extract from To A Skylark, Percy Bysshe Shelley, read by Timothy West, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 1998