HALE, John (Barry) 1926-

PERSONAL: Born February 5, 1926, in Woolwich, England; son of Alfred John (a soldier) and Ethel (Barr) Hale; married Valerie June Bryan (an artist), August, 1950; children: Simon John, Felicity Joanna. Education: Attended Royal Naval College, Greenwich, England.

ADDRESSES: Home—Margate, Kent, England. Agent—Stephen Durbridge, Harvey Unna & Stephen Durbridge Ltd., 14 Beaumont Mews, Marylebone High St., London W1N 4HE, England.

CAREER: Stage hand, stage manager, and electrician in variety, touring, and repertory companies, 1952-55; Lincoln Repertory Theatre, Lincoln, England, founder and artistic director, 1955-58; Arts Theatre, Ipswich, England, artistic director, 1958-59; Bristol Old Vic Theatre, Bristol, England, artistic director, 1959-61; freelance director, 1961—; freelance writer, 1965—. Director of television dramas for independent television companies, 1961-64; directed Shakespearean plays on record for EMI, 1962-64. Greenwich Theatre, London, member of board of governors, 1963-71, associate artistic director, 1968-71, 1975-76, resident playwright, 1975-76. Military service: Royal Navy, 1941-51.

WRITINGS:

novels

Kissed the Girls and Made Them Cry, Collins (London, England), 1963, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1966.

The Grudge Fight, Collins (London, England), 1964, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1967.

A Fool at the Feast, Collins (London, England), 1966.

The Paradise Man, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1969.

The Fort, Quartet (London, England), 1973.

The Love School, BBC Publications (London, England), 1974, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1975.

Lovers and Heretics, Gollancz (London, England) 1976, Dial (New York, NY), 1978.

The Whistle Blower, J. Cape (London, England), 1984, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1985.

plays

The Black Swan Winter (two-act; first produced in Hampstead, England, at Hampstead Theatre Club, 1968), published in Plays of the Year, Volume 37, edited by J. C. Trewin, Elek (London, England), 1970.

It's All in the Mind (two-act), first produced at Hamp-stead Theatre Club, 1968.

Decibels (one-act; first produced in Liverpool, England, at Liverpool Everyman Theatre, 1969), published in Prompt Three, edited by Alan Burband, Hutchinson (London, England), 1976.

Here Is the News (one-act), first produced in Beaufort, England, at Beaufort Theatre, 1970.

Lorna and Ted (two-act), first produced in Greenwich, England, at Greenwich Theatre, 1970.

Spithead (three-act; first produced in Greenwich, England, at Greenwich Theatre, 1969), published in Plays of the Year, Volume 38, edited by J. C. Trewin, Elek (London, England), 1971.

The Lion's Cub (one-act; first broadcast by British Broadcasting Corp., 1971), published in Elizabeth R, Elek (London, England), 1971.

In Memory of … Carmen Miranda (one-act), first produced in Greenwich, England, at Greenwich Theatre, 1975.

Love's Old Sweet Song (two-act), first produced at Greenwich Theatre, 1976.

The Case of David Anderson Q. C. (two-act), first produced in Manchester, England, at Library Theatre, 1980.

screenplays

The Rules That Jack Made, 1965.

The Noise Stopped, 1966.

Light the Blue Touch Paper, 1966.

The Queen's Traitor (five-part series), 1967.

Retreat, 1968.

(With Bridget Boland) Anne of the Thousand Days (adapted from the play by Maxwell Anderson), Universal, 1969.

The Picnic, 1969.

The Distracted Preacher, 1969.

(With Edward Simpson) The Mind of Mr. Soames (adapted from a novel by Charles Eric Maine), Columbia, 1970.

Mary, Queen of Scots, Universal, 1971.

The Lion's Cub, 1971 (also see above).

The Bristol Entertainment, 1971.

Anywhere but England, 1972.

Ego Hugo: A Romantic Entertainment, 1973.

The Brotherhood, 1975.

An Impeccable Elopement, 1975.

Good-bye America, 1976.

The Whistle Blower, 1986.

Also writer for Thirteen against Fate (television series) and Micah Clarke (radio series). Has directed sound recordings of thirteen Shakespeare plays for FCM Productions.

SIDELIGHTS: Although John Hale has written a number of novels and plays, he has perhaps received most attention in America for his television script The Lion's Cub (first in the "Elizabeth R." series), his screenplay for Mary, Queen of Scots, his contribution to the screenplay for Anne of the Thousand Days, and his novel The Whistle Blower, which was made into a motion picture of the same name. Regarding his plays and screenplays, critics have praised Hale's ability to portray the complexities of Elizabethan England and to present a coherent plot and an engaging drama. For example, in a review of Mary, Queen of Scots, a Variety writer said Hale "has fashioned a good original screenplay which alternates dramatically between the quirks and fortunes of Mary Stuart in Scotland and the well-organized court of Elizabeth." Punch writer Richard Mallett found the dialogue of Anne of the Thousand Days to be "unobtrusively modern, without being out of key."

The Lion's Cub tells the story of Elizabeth I in the years before she assumed the throne. James Preston of Stage and Television Today praised Hale's "ability to untangle the intricacies of Tudor politics, underscore the religious faith and fervour of the age and characterise dead names from history books." A Variety reviewer also noted that the "path to the throne was a tortuous one for Elizabeth the girl and John Hale's script gave … [Glenda] Jackson ample opportunities to reveal how intrigues, environment and eventual imprisonment were the crucible that formed her character in those early days."

Hale's play Lorna and Ted is a drastic departure from the majestic courts of Elizabethan England. Set in rural Suffolk, it is the story of a lonely, aging bachelor and his equally lonely housekeeper. Through a series of various comic maneuverings Ted persuades Lorna to marry him, but once they are married, their relationship decays rapidly. Although Robert Cushman of Plays and Players praised Hale for writing with "in-sight, intelligence, [and] a mournful humour," he wrote that the "long duologues punctuated by blackouts during which the actors visibly rearranged themselves, are really the stuff of television." Stage contributor R. B. Marriott commented that the "success of the play … is in the effect of everyday detail, personal and domestic, and the creation of an air of relentless aloneness."

The Black Swan Winter, which Hale wrote as a requiem for his father, is about a man who, though he is a "success," senses that something vital is missing from his life. He journeys to his childhood home in an effort to learn what he can from his father, who counsels his son that the only way he can hope to avoid disappointment is to give up his dreams and adhere to a strict course of duty and discipline. The dialogue, wrote Jeremy Kingston of Punch, is "at its best in the heart-to-heart talks."

Kingston called It's All in the Mind an "alert, suspenseful play" and observed that Hale "has a keen ear for the edgy, slightly kidding talk that goes on between friends." This play, like The Black Swan Winter, deals with disillusionment as its heroine is confronted with the knowledge that both her husband and an old friend have been manipulating her for their own (in her eyes, dishonorable) ends.

The principal characters in Hale's novel The Grudge Fight are two teenage apprentices in the Royal Navy who, in an attempt to settle their multiple disputes, stage a "grudge fight." Hale, a Royal Navy veteran and the son of a career soldier, drew on his military background to create what David Sharpe of Best Sellers called a "confusing yet compelling story about the life of a young apprentice during the first hectic months of naval training." A New York Times Book Review critic described The Grudge Fight as "an action story that concentrates effectively on the immediate moment." Sharpe also praised Hale's ability to "get into the mind of a boy, his thoughts, his feelings, his language, and his ambitions."

Over a two-decade period, Hale also wrote a "handful" of novels. In his 1973 offering, The Fort, he employs another military setting. This novel is set on the Mediterranean island of Dragut, "which, in the best traditions of fiction, is anywhere and everywhere," wrote Peter Ackroyd in the Spectator In 1807 the island had been the scene of a mutiny; over a century and a half later the descendants of those original mutineers attempt to avenge the unjust execution of their ancestors. A Times Literary Supplement reviewer praised Hale for allowing his characters to develop fully: "None of the characters is trotted out for the convenience of the plot; each one comes with its own cloud of existence about it, a felt and complex past." Ackroyd called the novel "innovative" and went on to say that "this is no naive forward narrative, but the continual spinning of past and present into … a web."

Nearly a decade later, Hale published what is likely his most popular novel, The Whistle Blower, a "startling spy thriller rife with bracing political and psychological truths," wrote a Publishers Weekly critic. Following in the literary footsteps of George Orwell and Arthur Koestler, Hale makes his subject the intrigue within British and American secret governmental security organizations. Thus when protagonist Frank Jones listens to his son tell how he will soon resign from the British intelligence service, and the son is killed in a suspicious accident, Jones feels compelled to investigate. Reviewer Paxton Davis complimented Hale for his characterization of Jones, which he dubbed a "solid creation," and his "crisp and competent" prose, yet he wrote in the New York Times that the author "does not lift his novel above the ordinary." Library Journal contributor Brian Alley also praised Hale's writing as "sensitive and thought-provoking" and his characters as "realistically portrayed"; yet Peter Lewis of the Times Literary Supplement went even further, seeing more in The Whistle Blower than pure entertainment. "For Hale," Lewis wrote, "Britain may present the illusion of an open society, but under it he locates creeping totalitarianism, layers of conspiratorial secrecy within the Establishment, and officially sanctioned machiavellianism devoted to preserving the status quo at any cost." Therefore Lewis saw the work as one man's struggle against the State and as a "kind of Bildungsroman of middle age, a novel of moral and political wakening."

The novel The Whistle Blower formed the basis of a motion picture of the same name, for which Hale wrote the screenplay. Starring Michael Caine, this "bleak, believable, and very English espionage thriller" as a Mystery Guide reviewer described it, appeared in 1987. "The English have always been fascinated with treachery and espionage," actor Caine told Boston Globe writer Jay Carr. The Whistle Blower is as "an angry film … [with] much of its anger … directed at the futility of Britain's global position." Although this anger make Americans its target, in Carr's view the film also criticizes the British class system, and because this anger disrupts the movie's focus, it robs it of any power. Nevertheless Carr thought The Whistle Blower worth seeing, if only for Caine's performance.

When asked to comment on his writing, Hale once told CA, "I don't want to address my readers directly, I want to speak to them through my work!"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Best Sellers, October 1, 1967; November, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 296.

Booklist, September 1, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 31.

Books and Bookmen, December, 1984, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 35.

Boston Globe, August 7, 1987, Jay Carr, "Whistle Blower Rages at British Bureaucracy"; August 16, 1987, Jay Carr, "Britain's Troubles, Told with Gusto," p. A1; August 26, 1987, "Michael Caine: Actor with a Lot to Say," p. 25.

British Book News, November, 1984, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 688.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 655.

Library Journal, October 1, 1985, Brian Alley, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 112.

Listener, January 10, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 25.

New York Times Book Review, September 10, 1967; November 10, 1985, Paxton Davis, The Whistle Blower, p. 28.

Plays and Players, October, 1970.

Publishers Weekly, July 26, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 155; July 22, 1988, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 56.

Punch, October 16, 1968, May 21, 1969; March 4, 1970; November 21, 1984, review of The Whistle Blower, p.74; January 16, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 83.

Spectator, September 29, 1973.

Stage, September 10, 1970.

Stage and Television Today, February 25, 1971.

Times Literary Supplement, November 23, 1973; October 12, 1984, Peter Lewis, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 1167.

Variety, December 22, 1971; February 23, 1972.

Washington Post Book World, October 6, 1985, review of The Whistle Blower, p. 6.

online

Mystery Guide, http://www.mysteryguide.com/ (August 8, 2003), review of The Whistle Blower.*