Simon Gray: 'I will never forget his kindness'

Our theatre critic Charles Spencer pays tribute to Simon Gray, the playwright who died last week The first time I encountered the work of Simon Gray was watching his play Otherwise Engaged (1975 ). I was in my late teens and sitting with my mother, father and younger sister, so that what might have been the quasi-illicit pleasure of watching an attractive actress taking her top off was transformed into a mortifying ordeal of extended embarrassment. All four of us sat there, eyes glued to the stage, trying to pretend nothing untoward was happening. Gray, of course, was always superb at nailing the discomforts and hypocrisies of the middle classes, but his meticulously crafted, balefully funny and often deeply moving plays were regarded as unfashionable for much of his career, when Left-wing state-of-the-nation dramas were in... [read full story]