DELANEY, SHELAGH

born Nov.25, 1939, Salford, Lancashire, Eng. British playwright who, at the age of 19, won critical acclaim and popular success with the London production of her first play, A Taste of Honey (1958). Two years later, Delaney received the Drama Critics' Circle Award for the play's New York City production. By her own account, Delaney wrote A Taste of Honey after seeing a play by Terence Rattigan and deciding that she could write a better one. Set in the bleak industrial north country of the author's birth, the play blends humour and pathos in its vivid account of an illegitimate pregnancy. It was made into a notable film in 1961. A second play, The Lion in Love (1961), was received less favourably. Delaney later produced a volume of short stories, Sweetly Sings the Donkey (1963). She won wide praise in 1968 for her screenplay Charlie Bubbles. Her third play, The House That Jack Built (1977), was first produced for television. During the 1970s and '80s she wrote primarily for radio and television.