I knew her as the author of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Their son is Matthew Kneale, whose novel English Passengers did very well recently (and is rather good).
I know of her primary for Pink Rabbit, because Rosemary Leach read it on Radio 4; I was too old for Mog when she started publishing. I do remember seeing her in interviews with Nigel Kneale, when they were explaining how they did the monster in Westminster Abbey, but I didn't make that connection.
It was curious, reading today's obituary in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1936844,00.html), that John Ezard never mentioned The Year of the Sex Olympics. The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2432768,00.html) did, but focused on the then-explicit sex rather than the prediction of reality television. I do suspect that play suffers for its title, and that people who haven't seen it assume the Sex Olympics are the main plot. Though those who have seen it understandably focus on the reality television, whereas I was fascinated by the way all the characters except Leonard Rossiter, who remembers the old times, speak a debased and simplified form of English, which I took to be an illustration of the 1984 thesis that you can limit thought by limiting vocabulary. Also, it has Brian Cox in it.
Thanks for the links to those obits. I have still never seen The Year of the Sex Olympics, tho' I've read a lot about it, and it's daft of me, because I know it's an important piece of television about television.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-01 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-01 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 03:12 pm (UTC)It was curious, reading today's obituary in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1936844,00.html), that John Ezard never mentioned The Year of the Sex Olympics. The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2432768,00.html) did, but focused on the then-explicit sex rather than the prediction of reality television. I do suspect that play suffers for its title, and that people who haven't seen it assume the Sex Olympics are the main plot. Though those who have seen it understandably focus on the reality television, whereas I was fascinated by the way all the characters except Leonard Rossiter, who remembers the old times, speak a debased and simplified form of English, which I took to be an illustration of the 1984 thesis that you can limit thought by limiting vocabulary. Also, it has Brian Cox in it.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-02 10:12 am (UTC)