Lesley Sharp hailed Taste of Honey author Shelagh Delaney as the “godmother” of today’s star women playwrights, tackling tough social subjects years ahead of her time.
Sharp, speaking after last night’s opening, said: “Without Shelagh, other women writing now would have had a harder job.”
The actress said Delaney was the godmother to writers such as Sarah Kane and Caryl Churchill “and a hundred more” but was “not given the same sort of support” as male rivals like John Osborne, Joe Orton and Harold Pinter.
Sharp added: “She set the bar very high but she was a lone voice in 1958 and she was surrounded by men who were taken up by the establishment and courted, and their plays were put on regularly and were reviewed favourably.
“Women have only had the vote for 100 years. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do in the way we actually inveigle our way into the institutions in this country.”
