A Taste of Honey, a Play

A sensational theatrical success in London, A Taste of Honey was written by Shelagh Delaney at the age of 18. The play prompted Graham Greene to say that it had “all the freshness of Mr. Osborne’s Look Back In Anger and a greater maturity.” A Taste of Honey won Miss Delaney two national awards, the sale of film rights productions at Stratford, London, and Paris, and a round of applause from the critics.

The play is the story of a working-class, adolescent girl and her relationships with the Black sailor who makes her pregnant; the homosexual art student who moves into her apartment to help her through her pregnancy; her fun-loving, saloon-frequenting mother; and Peter, her mother’s newly acquired husband. Jo moves, in a very detached way, within this economic and emotional whirlpool. Miss Delaney translates these emo­tionally charged situations into a non-sentimental and realistic play.