Bill Naughton Biography
(1910–92), My Flesh, My Blood, Alfie Elkins and His Little Life, Spring and Port Wine
British playwright, born in Co. Mayo, raised in Lancashire. After leaving school he was variously employed as a lorry driver, weaver, and coal-bagger before turning seriously to drama. His first plays were for the radio, but two of them, My Flesh, My Blood (1957) and Alfie Elkins and His Little Life (1962), were subsequently adapted by him for the stage, and respectively became the highly successful Spring and Port Wine (1964), about family stresses in a patriarchal northern household, and Alfie (1963), about the sexual adventures of a spry yet clearly somewhat inadequate Don Juan. Like All in Good Time (1963), about the difficulties a young couple have in consummating their marriage, these are both comedies, in the tradition of such other Lancashire playwrights as Harold Brighouse and Stanley Houghton; and they are notable for their good-humoured yet unsentimental observation of working-class life. Naughton has also published several novels, including a version of Alfie in 1966, some short stories, and two volumes of autobiography, A Roof over Your Head (1945) and Pony Boy (1966).
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Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: Mr Polly to New France