Michael Frayn

Early Years

Frayn was born on the 8th September 1933 and grew up in Ewell, South London. His father worked for an asbestos and roofing materials firm. His mother had been a talented musician; she played the violin and secured a place at the Royal Academy of Music, which she had to give up halfway through her course as a result of her family’s financial difficulties. There was no precedent for authorial ambition in Frayn’s family then, but he harboured ambitions to become a writer from his teenage years.

Education

He attended a private school until his mother’s untimely death in 1945 (Frayn was 12). As his father had to employ a housekeeper, he could no longer afford the fees, so Frayn was sent to the local grammar school in Kingston. At first apprehensive, he soon settled in and appreciated that it was, after all, a decent, orderly school.

His academic efforts won him a place at Cambridge, where he studied French and Russian before changing to Moral Sciences (Philosophy). He became friends with the playwright Alan Bennett, who was also on his course. They began to write together. Frayn threw himself with enthusiasm into the extracurricular academic life of Cambridge, writing for Footlights (the Cambridge undergraduates’ comedic amateur dramatics society) and editing for Granta (then the Cambridge University magazine).

Career

Frayn opted for journalism before going on to write plays and fiction, saying that the desire to become a writer wasn’t the sort of ambition one announced. He started work at the Manchester Guardian and began to write a regular column in 1959. He continued to write this column until 1968. He has said, ‘Reporting is one of the very hardest things I’ve tried to do’.

Frayn began to write novels in the 1960s and early 1970s. A lot of his writing reflects his philosophical training. In 1967 he wrote Towards the End of the Morning, a novel that is still widely acclaimed. He also wrote plays with varying levels of commercial success. The Two of Us, starring Lynne Redgrave and Richard Briars, attracted the most awful reviews and was judged a flop. Buoyed by Briars’ encouragement, Frayn persisted in his playwriting. After several more successful attempts, he wrote Noises Off, which was outstandingly successful and has continued to be played in various theatres throughout the world ever since.

Frayn also achieved great critical acclaim for his 1999 novel, Headlong, a hefty, scholarly work based around the concept of discovering one of the missing paintings in a sequence of Dutch masterpieces by the artist, Bruegel. Headlong was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Whitbread Nobel Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.

Spies, first published in 2002, was also hailed as a great success, and was awarded Whitbread Novel of the Year in 2002.

Frayn has also successfully translated several Russian plays, notably The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya by Chekhov.

Personal Details

He is married to his second wife, Claire Tomalin, biographer and critic. He is still close to his family of three daughters from his previous marriage to Gillian Palmer.