Background
Wynyard Barry Browne was born on October 6, 1911, in London. His father, Barry Mathew Charles Sleater Browne, was a clergyman, and his mother was Eleanor Muriel Verena (Malcolmson) Browne.
dramatist playwright screenwriter
Wynyard Barry Browne was born on October 6, 1911, in London. His father, Barry Mathew Charles Sleater Browne, was a clergyman, and his mother was Eleanor Muriel Verena (Malcolmson) Browne.
Browne was a literate child, who read all of Henrik Ibsen's work by the time he was fourteen. He was trained at Marlborough and Christ's College, Cambridge. It was while in college that Browne developed his skills in writing.
Browne began working as a journalist just after he graduated from Cambridge. When he was only twenty-four, he published his first novel, Queenie Molson (1934), which told the story of a communist undergraduate student. The novel demonstrates "wry humor and a sharp eye for character," according to J. C. Trewin in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. It led to the publication in quick succession of two more novels: Sheldon's Way (1935) and The Fire and the Fiddle (1937). The novels display Browne's most celebrated trait: full, sensitive character portrayals that develop over the course of a story.
Browne's books were welcomed by critics, but he chose not to pursue a career as a novelist. Instead, after a period of straight journalistic writing, Browne began to write for the theater. Browne's first play. Dark Summer (1947), is a spare, Ibsen inspired drama that focuses on the interactions of five people. But the production of Dark Summer was only a hit among the canniest of theater-goers. So, for his next work, Browne attempted a more accessible approach. Browne's next play The Holly and the Ivy (1950), is his most famous. It tells of a vicar's Christmas gathering in Norfolk.
The play was a hit. It began with a "tryout tour," in which the play was shopped around in smaller towns to build "a buzz" before hitting the big stages of London. The cast included Herbert Lomas, Jane Baxter and Daphne Arthur - all exceptional talents. The play received good reviews, but had trouble drawing audiences in the small towns it played. No one believed that the tour of this small, sincere drama would generate sufficient enthusiasm for a West End opening. Nevertheless, when it was staged at the Lyric Theatre, a remote arena in Hammersmith, the crowd went wild. The play was swept into London on waves of approval; the lead actress, Daphne Arthur, even won the Clarence Derwent Award for her intense portrayal of one of the vicar's daughters. The play ran for more than a year in London, and its proceeds enabled Browne to work fulltime as a playwright. Browne was in the flower of his career.
Browne's next two plays again focused on human connections and revelations rather than splashy plot twists. In A Question of Fact (1953), a young teacher who was an adopted child discovers that his biological father was hanged for murder. He searches out his birth mother in order to learn the true story of his past. The debut of the play starred Paul Scofield and Gladys Cooper, and - though it was a change of pace for playgoers who had come to expect more explosive dramas - it was well received.
The Ring of Truth (1959) was a comedy about the catastrophic results that may follow a simple domestic accident - in this case, the loss of a wedding ring. By this point, however, Browne's understated touch was out of fashion. The play was less successful, and he soon stopped writing altogether.
He died five years later, in Norwich, of natural causes.
Trewin opined that Browne "will be remembered as a gentle, civilized dramatist with a gift for potent dialogue and an affection for his characters."
Wynyard married Joan Margaret Yeaxlee in 1948 and they had one daughter.