Barrie Keeffe


Barrie Colin Keeffe was a British dramatist and screenwriter, best known for his screenplay for the 1980 film The Long Good Friday.

Career

Born in London, Keeffe was educated at East Ham Grammar School and joined the National Youth Theatre as an actor, after working as a journalist. His first television play, The Substitute, was produced in 1972, his first theatre play Only a Game in 1973, and he became a full-time dramatic author in 1975: his theatre plays have been produced in 26 countries. He is also a screenwriter, notable for the films The Long Good Friday and Sus in 2010.
Keeffe's writing has been noted for touching on political themes. Gimme Shelter addressed class, Barbarians was Keeffe's attempt to "capture the energy of punk" and addressed unemployment, Sus concerned institutionalised racism in the police, and Better Times was about the 1921 Poplar Rates Rebellion.
Keeffe was writer-in-residence at the Shaw Theatre in 1977, resident playwright with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1978, and associate writer at the Theatre Royal Stratford East from 1986 to 1991. He taught dramatic writing at City University, London, was Judith J. Wilson Fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge, visiting lecturer and patron of Writing for Performance at Ruskin College, Oxford, and writer in residence at Kingston University, London. He has led the Collaldra Writers School and Retreat, Venice, since 2007.
He was a United Nations Ambassador in 1995 and was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters at Warwick University in 2010. He received the Paris Critics Prix Revelations in 1978 and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1982. He was represented by The Agency, London.
Keeffe's Sus was revived at the Young Vic in 2009, and toured the UK in 2010. His Barbarians trilogy was revived in London in 2012 and 2015 by Tooting Arts Club and also in 2015 at the Young Vic.

Personal life

Keeffe was married to the novelist and theatre director Verity Bargate, who died in 1981. After her death he was guardian to her two sons, whom he brought up. In 2012 Keeffe married the film and television producer Jacky Stoller.
Keeffe died on 10 December 2019, following a brief undisclosed illness. He was 74.

Works

Theatre plays