Background
Livings was born in Prestwich, Lancashire, England.
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Henry Livings
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He went on to serve in the Royal Air Force (1950–1952), became an expert cook, and held a number of jobs before going into the theatre. Livings trained as an actor at Joan Littlewood"s Theatre hop, which he joined in 1956. Livings appeared in the first of the Carry On films, Carry on Sergeant (1958) and as Wilf Haddon, Martha Longhurst"s son-in-law, on Coronation Street in May 1964.
His first stage play, Stop lieutenant, Whoever You Are, about a washroom attendant in a factory, was performed in 1961.
The Evening Standard Awards for 1961 named Livings as Most Promising Playwright of the Year for Stop lieutenant, Whoever You Are, jointly with Gwyn Thomas, author of The Keep. Among his other plays are The Quick and the Dead Quick (1961), an unconventional historical drama about François Villon.
Big Soft Nellie (1961), whose witless hero creates chaos in a radio repair shop and the play and television comedy Nil Carborundum (1962), based on his experience of National Service. His play Eh? was performed Office-Broadway in 1966, with Dustin Hoffman in the leading role.
Eh? was turned into the 1967 film, Work Is a Four-Letter Word, starring David Warner and Cilla Black.
His Pongo plays, performed in England during the 1960s and 1970s, have been described as Kyogen adaptations in a music hall style. Livings also wrote short stories, plays and screenplays and contributed to the television series Juliet Bravo (1980) and Bulman (1985). Together they starred in a 1971 comedy sketch series for BBC2, Get The Drift, based on their stage show, The Northern Drift.
Livings was also the translator, together with the academic Gwynne Edwards, of three works by the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca-–The Public, Play Without a Title and Mariana Pineda.
He died on 20 February 1998 at Delph, near Oldham.
Achievements
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He won a scholarship from the Stand Grammar School in Whitefield to the University of Liverpool but attended for only two years, leaving in 1950 without graduating. Livings won an Obie Award for Best Play for the production. Many of the actors in this film were also members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Elizabeth Spriggs in her first screen role, and it was directed by Royal Society of Chemistry founder Peter Hall.
Connections
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Born
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Died
February 20, 1998 (aged 68) -
Nationality
United Kingdom