16 Facts About Snoo Wilson

Andrew James Wilson, better known as Snoo Wilson, was an English playwright, screenwriter and director.

Snoo Wilson's early plays such as Blow-Job were overtly political, often combining harsh social comment with comedy.

Snoo Wilson began to build his reputation with a series of plays and screenplays in the early 1970s and was a founder of Portable Theatre Company, a touring company concentrating on experimental theatre.

Snoo Wilson continued to write plays and screenplays until the end of his life, including for the Bush Theatre.

Snoo Wilson was born in Reading, the son of two teachers: Leslie Snoo Wilson and his wife Pamela Mary nee Boyle.

Snoo Wilson was educated at Bradfield College, where his father taught, and the University of East Anglia, graduating with a degree in American and English Literature in 1969.

Snoo Wilson's early plays, the one-act Girl Mad as Pigs and the two-act Ella Daybellfesse's Machine, were first produced at UEA in, respectively, June and November 1967.

Together with Tony Bicat and David Hare, Snoo Wilson founded the Portable Theatre Company, a touring company concentrating on experimental theatre, and was its associate director from 1970 to 1975.

Snoo Wilson's plays from these years included four one-act works, Charles the Martyr, Device of Angels, Pericles, The Mean Knight and Reason, most of which dealt with overtly political subjects.

Snoo Wilson was successful with screenplays and teleplays in the 1970s, including Sunday for Seven Days, The Good Life, More About the Universe, Swamp Music, The Barium Meal, The Trip to Jerusalem, Don't Make Waves and A Greenish Man.

Snoo Wilson's style grew away from the overtly political manner of his contemporaries David Hare and Howard Brenton, and he often wrote about the arcane, the occult, and the irrational, whether in the Gothic intrigues of Vampire, the space aliens of Moonshine, or the duelling wizards of The Number of the Beast.

Snoo Wilson often sought to fuse social criticism with a surrealistic, comic style.

The reviews concentrated on the production designs, which strongly divided opinion; Snoo Wilson's work escaped the sharp censure directed at his colleagues, and his device of turning the bossy character "Public Opinion" into a parody of the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was favourably remarked upon.

Snoo Wilson taught literature and theatre at various institutions both in Britain and America later in life.

Snoo Wilson taught scriptwriting at the National Film School and returned to UEA as writer in residence.

Snoo Wilson died of a heart attack in Ashford, Kent, on 3 July 2013, aged 64.