Neil Bartlett is a British novelist, playwright, and theatre director known for combining literary invention with a lifelong commitment to performance and queer culture. He is the author of Who Was That Man (1988), Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall (1990), Mr Clive & Mr Page (1996), Skin Lane (2007), The Disappearance Boy (2014), and Address Book (2021). His fiction explores identity, secrecy, and desire with formal precision and emotional depth. In 2000, he was awarded the OBE for services to theatre.
Born in Chichester, West Sussex, in 1958, Neil Bartlett grew up in a household where literature and theatre were central to his imagination. He studied at Oxford and began his career in experimental performance during the early 1980s. In 1982, he founded the 1982 Theatre Company and created works that mixed street performance, cabaret, and physical theatre. Collaborations with Simon McBurney as part of the act The Beechbuoys reflected a clowning style influenced by Philippe Gaulier.
In 1983, Bartlett worked for Consenting Adults in Public, helping to stage Anti Body, the first British play to address the AIDS crisis. His early work, Dressing Up, marked the beginning of a long engagement with gay history and public memory.
In 1988, Bartlett published Who Was That Man: A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde, a study of Wilde’s life and influence on contemporary gay identity. The book has since become recognised as a landmark in queer studies. That same year, he founded the performance collective GLORIA, whose works—such as A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep (1988), Sarrasine (1990), and Night After Night (1993)—were staged in theatres, lecture halls, and cathedrals, deliberately erasing the line between high art and popular spectacle.
His debut novel, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall (1990), was named Book of the Year by Capital Gay and translated into five languages. His second novel, Mr Clive & Mr Page (1996), was longlisted for the Whitbread Prize, while Skin Lane (2007) was longlisted for the Costa Award. The Disappearance Boy (2014) received a Stonewall Author of the Year nomination, and Address Book (2021) was met with wide critical acclaim for its linked portraits of London life.
Between 1994 and 2005, Bartlett served as Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith, transforming it into one of London’s most dynamic theatres. His programming combined classic revivals with radical new writing, bringing together companies such as Kneehigh and Frantic Assembly. Later directing credits included productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and major festivals across Europe.
In recent years, he has written and staged The Plague (after Camus), Medea (reimagined by Jean-René Lemoine), and Princess (2021), a celebration of queer Georgian London for Duckie at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. His 2022–2023 adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando for Emma Corrin drew critical praise for its wit and lyric clarity. As a performer, he revisited his 1987 solo work, A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep, in a one-night performance at Tate Britain. He created Twenty-Four Hours of Peace (2019), a live radio event broadcast nationwide.
Neil Bartlett lives between Brighton and London with his partner, the writer and archivist James Gardiner.
Photo credit: www.neil-bartlett.com
Born in Chichester, West Sussex, in 1958, Neil Bartlett grew up in a household where literature and theatre were central to his imagination. He studied at Oxford and began his career in experimental performance during the early 1980s. In 1982, he founded the 1982 Theatre Company and created works that mixed street performance, cabaret, and physical theatre. Collaborations with Simon McBurney as part of the act The Beechbuoys reflected a clowning style influenced by Philippe Gaulier.
In 1983, Bartlett worked for Consenting Adults in Public, helping to stage Anti Body, the first British play to address the AIDS crisis. His early work, Dressing Up, marked the beginning of a long engagement with gay history and public memory.
In 1988, Bartlett published Who Was That Man: A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde, a study of Wilde’s life and influence on contemporary gay identity. The book has since become recognised as a landmark in queer studies. That same year, he founded the performance collective GLORIA, whose works—such as A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep (1988), Sarrasine (1990), and Night After Night (1993)—were staged in theatres, lecture halls, and cathedrals, deliberately erasing the line between high art and popular spectacle.
His debut novel, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall (1990), was named Book of the Year by Capital Gay and translated into five languages. His second novel, Mr Clive & Mr Page (1996), was longlisted for the Whitbread Prize, while Skin Lane (2007) was longlisted for the Costa Award. The Disappearance Boy (2014) received a Stonewall Author of the Year nomination, and Address Book (2021) was met with wide critical acclaim for its linked portraits of London life.
Between 1994 and 2005, Bartlett served as Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith, transforming it into one of London’s most dynamic theatres. His programming combined classic revivals with radical new writing, bringing together companies such as Kneehigh and Frantic Assembly. Later directing credits included productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and major festivals across Europe.
In recent years, he has written and staged The Plague (after Camus), Medea (reimagined by Jean-René Lemoine), and Princess (2021), a celebration of queer Georgian London for Duckie at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. His 2022–2023 adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando for Emma Corrin drew critical praise for its wit and lyric clarity. As a performer, he revisited his 1987 solo work, A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep, in a one-night performance at Tate Britain. He created Twenty-Four Hours of Peace (2019), a live radio event broadcast nationwide.
Neil Bartlett lives between Brighton and London with his partner, the writer and archivist James Gardiner.
Photo credit: www.neil-bartlett.com
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