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James Stewart Parker (20 October 1941 – 2 November 1988) was a Northern Irish poet and playwright.
He was born in Sydenham, Belfast, of a Protestant working-class family. His birthplace is marked by an Ulster History Circle blue plaque.[1] While still in his teens, he contracted bone cancer and had a leg amputated. He studied for an MA in Poetic Drama at Queen's University, Belfast, on a scholarship, before commencing teaching in the United States at Hamilton College and Cornell University.
Parker was a member of a group of young writers that included Seamus Heaney and Bernard MacLaverty in the early 1960s at Queen's University in Belfast. In British Poetry since 1945, Edward Lucie-Smith calls him "a rawer, rougher, more unformed poet than either of the other two Belfast poets presented here" (i.e. Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon). He notes that all three are post-Movement and neo-Georgian, owing little to William Butler Yeats and not much more to Patrick Kavanagh.
Following his return to Northern Ireland he worked as a freelance writer, contributing a column on pop music to The Irish Times.[2] He later moved to Great Britain, where he wrote for radio, television and the stage. The musical landscape of Belfast is integral to his work as a playwright; Van Morrison was one of his favourite artists.[2]
Parker died of stomach cancer in London on 2 November 1988.[3]
His plays include Spokesong (1975), a musical Kingdom Come (1977), Catchpenny Twist (1977), Nightshade (1979), Pratt's Fall (1981), The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner (radio 1979, filmed 1981),[4][5] Northern Star (1984), Heavenly Bodies (1986) and Pentecost (1987).
The 1979 BBC Radio 4 production of The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner featured John le Mesurier, among others.[5]
The stage plays are published by Methuen Drama. Stewart Parker: Plays 1 (2000) includes Spokesong, Catchpenny Twist, Nightshade and Pratt's Fall. Stewart Parker: Plays 2 (2000) includes Northern Star, Heavenly Bodies and Pentecost.
Several new publications appeared in 2008, the twentieth anniversary of Parker's death. These include:
Parker's play I’m a Dreamer, Montreal won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.[6] It was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 in April 1975[7] and televised for ITV Playhouse in March 1979.[8]
InBelfast, where the play is set, music librarian Nelson Gloverby (Bryan Murray) lives in a dream world. A showband singer by night, he is unconcerned with his audience's irritation at his inability to stick to the proper lyrics. He is innocently drawn into the brutality of the Troubles when he meets siren Sandra Carse (Jeananne Crowley).[8] His world having been turned around, he takes the bus home. The bus driver is singing the lyrics "I'm a dreamer, Montreal"; however, this time it is Nelson who points out the correct lyrics: "I’m a Dreamer, Aren't We All?"[9]
An annual award (The Stewart Parker Trust Award) for best Irish debut play was set up in his name after his death. There is a cash bursary as part of the award. Previous recipients of the award include: Conor McPherson, Mark O'Rowe, Enda Walsh, Eugene O'Brien, Gerald Murphy, Lisa McGee and Christian O'Reilly.