Cartwright, Jim

Cartwright, Jim (1958- ), British playwright. Born and brought up in Farnworth, Lancashire, Cartwright attended the local secondary school and, though he left at the age of 16, he came under the influence of an inspiring drama teacher and also benefited from the construction of a new drama centre. After acting in the amateur productions of the Farnworth Little Theatre, he gained a place on the three-year acting course at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where he began writing. His first piece of work was a soliloquy about a skinhead's conversion to Buddhism, written for the end of course Agents' Evening audition.

Cartwright worked briefly as an actor at Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre, before a friend passed on some scenes and speeches of his to readers at London's Royal Court Theatre. These, including the original skinhead speech, turned into his first play, Road (1986-1987), a guided tour of the hopes and frustrations of a run-down Lancashire town. It is regarded as one of the outstanding plays of the 1980s. Then came a radio play, Baths (1987), and Bed (1989), a stage play about old people in a twilight world of dreams and sleep, featuring eight characters and a 30-ft-wide bed. After the successful Two (1989), set in a Northern pub, Cartwright produced his most important play so far, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (1992). This work was to answer the critics' charge that his talent lay only in vignettes and soliloquies. Faintly reminiscent of the work of Tennessee Williams, it tells the story of Mari Hoff, a forty-something, heavy-drinking widow and her daughter, Little Voice (a part written for Jane Horrocks), who has a talent for mimicking singers such as Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. This talent is seized on by her mother and the manipulative “theatrical agent”, Ray Say, and the play focuses on Little Voice as the victim of the couple's exploitation.

Hard Fruit, Cartwright’s play about sublimated homosexual desire among northern tough men premiered at the Royal Court in 2000. He also wrote the Danny Boyle-directed TV dramas Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise and Strumpet (both 2001).