Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} An English Tragedy by Ronald Harwood An English Tragedy. As a hugely successful if relatively unknown author and playwright, Ronald Harwood won an Oscar for his screenplay of The Pianist and has just been awarded a Bafta for his superb script for the recent French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly . But as some anonymous contributor to Wikipedia shrewdly points out, Harwood seldom writes original material directly for the screen, usually preferring to act as an adapter. So too with this wordy new play, more a docudrama than a tragedy. Set in the troubled aftermath of the Second World War, it draws deeply on the historical archives, but especially on Rebecca West​s 1948 best- seller The Meaning of Treason with its journalistic story of John Amery, elder son of a Tory Cabinet minister, who after a misspent youth ended up in Berlin during the war, making propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis as a misguided but passionately patriotic Brit. He also visited PoW camps in Germany in an unsuccessful attempt to recruit British soldiers to join his Legion of St George to fight alongside the Waffen-SS in an ideological war against the Soviets, the Jews and world Communism. Eventually the Germans recognised he was a busted flush and towards the end of the war he made his escape to northern Italy to join the beleaguered Benito Mussolini. So much for the back story, but the only glimpse we get on stage of these turbulent events is a brief moment as a Communist partisan arrests Amery and his glamorous girlfriend at gunpoint, before handing them over to the Allies for questioning. Thereafter, with Amery banged up in Wandsworth on a charge of high treason, the action largely consists of interrogations, interviews with shrinks and legal eagles, and hand-wringing episodes as Amery​s decent parents struggle to come to terms with events. In fact the family accumulated psychiatric evidence of his mental instability and unfitness to plead, plus documents collected by his brother Julian purporting to prove that while assisting Franco during the Civil War, Amery had acquired Spanish citizenship. All this seemed certain to win him an acquittal; except that Amery put his own head in the noose with an eleventh-hour declaration of guilt on all charges, an apparently motiveless suicidal act that even rattled the judiciary, a mystery that Harwood​s play now sets out to unravel and explain. But the most theatrical passages come during the melodramatic closing scene of stiff upper-lip bravado and fraught family farewells in the condemned cell, before the hangman Albert Pierrepoint arrives to carry out his grisly duties. As the chain-smoking central figure, clutching a teddy bear, Richard Goulding creates a surprisingly sympathetic Amery, like an anti-semitic Sebastian Flyte, a witty, wilful man-child whose rabid fascist rant is almost entirely discounted by his utterly disingenuous charm. And as the hours tick away to the fatal dawn he develops a warm, confiding relationship with Bill Thomas giving a strong cameo performance as the Wandsworth warder who came to admire his young and apparently fearless prisoner. Superb support comes from Diana Hardcastle as Amery​s anguished mother, and especially from Jeremy Child as the former Establishment politician Leo Amery, the most strongly written character: a father wrestling with his own inner demons, who concealed his Jewish ancestry as a means to political advancement and now fears that this may have triggered his son​s untrammelled misbehaviour and self-destructive loathing. The staging by Di Trevis, first in a season of Watford Palace centenary celebrations, is set on an almost bare stage, at first dominated by a huge swastika tab. This lifts to reveal a second swastika occupying the entire playing space, with sections that slide to create a variety of settings and something of an assault course for the actors. The design by veteran Ralph Koltai, skilfully lit by Roger Firth, is certainly a striking one. But Amery had no time for Nazi war aims against Britain, and a more appropriate symbol for Amery would have been a tattered Union Jack to reflect his sincere if dubious patriotic fervour. Theatre and Dance Previews. He's starring in An English Tragedy at the Watford Palace, but Richard Goulding's story is more a tale of success! An English Tragedy. Watford Palace Theatre. An English Tragedy. by Ronald Harwood. 14 February – 8 March 2008. Director: Di Trevis Designer: Ralph Koltai Music: Dominic Muldowney. A world premiere of a play by the Oscar-Winning playwright Ronald Harwood is launching the Watford Palace's centenary season this month. An English Tragedy is a powerful, gripping tale of conflicting loyalties and wartime treason, based on the true story of the British fascist John Amery, a complex and fascinating man, who was arrested and charged with high treason in 1945 after making propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany. The trial was made more sensational by the fact he was the son of Leo Amery who served in Winston Churchill’s cabinet during the war. Taking on the lead role is young actor Richard Goulding who has just finished a stint with the RSC playing Konstantin in Trevor Nunn’s The Seagull and also took on parts in Nunn's King Lear, which starred Sir Ian McKellen in the title role. Richard graduated early from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to be in these productions which were seen in the West End, Stratford and around the world - a dream first job by anyone's standards! He told us all about his latest role and how he came to be plucked from obscurity to be on stage with some of the UK's finest actors! Can you tell us the premise of An English Tragedy because it's a true story isn't it? Richard: Yes - it's about a young man called John Amery who was the son of a British Cabinet Minister, who was the Secretary of State for India and Burma during the Second World War. An English Tragedy in rehearsal. He [John] was quite a character. He fell into a lot of debt and enjoyed money, fast cars and women and ended up bankrupt in Europe during the war. He fell in with a lot of people with fascist sentiments and in the end was employed by the Nazis in Berlin to broadcast to Britain, encouraging the British government and the British people to side with German against Russia, which in the minds of the Nazis meant Jews and Communists essentially, which in their warped sense of things were the same thing. So, essentially he was guilty of treason by inciting British people to rise up against the British government which at that time was fighting against the Germans. That's essentially what he did, but there are much more complicated things within that. There is a rather exciting and interesting twist in the plot to do with his identity and his family and the play is not only about what he did, it's actually more about the family and the impact which that sort of behaviour has on a family, and a father who, being involved in politics, had high hopes for his eldest son. But those hopes are dashed fairly dramatically by this reckless behaviour. You play John Amery, what would you say he is like? Richard: That's a very tricky question! As an actor one mustn't judge one's character in anyway, you've simply got to inhabit it and try to justify his beliefs and his actions so I must try not to be too judgemental! But I think it's fair to say that these days he would be diagnosed with some sort of behavioural disorder. At the time of the trial he was examined by psychiatrists because obviously his parents were trying as best as they could to find a reason for him not to be tried or at least not to be found guilty. One of the avenues they went down was this mental instability that he clearly had. He behaved outrageously, even as a child. When his younger brother was born it was recorded that when told that he had a younger brother he said, "That's jolly nice but I think I'd have preferred a cat!" So his reactions were rather swift, instinctive and impulsive. He was very witty and very charming but it was said he had no concept of moral right or wrong and coupled with that he was unable to connect actions that had happened to their consequences. So, with anything that he did, he would have no idea it was said, what it would lead to, or its effect on other people. I think probably he had no sense of empathy or sympathy. He was a very charming guy who unfortunately fell in with the wrong people, but I think that these days he would have been protected by some sort of diagnosis. It's interesting that if it's a bit different from normal, it's called a condition. It could just be how he was? Richard: Yes - the psychiatrist who examined him said he knew what he was doing, he knew it was against the law, but he was consciously doing it because it was what he believed in. It was a passionately held political belief and his actions were done ironically, not because he wanted to be treacherous, but because he was a deep heartfelt patriot so he believed completely that what he was doing was right - it just so happened that it wasn't. But yes, it's odd that these days you can say that a person is like this because of a condition and often it can just simply be bad behaviour. But I think in his case the psychiatrist's reports definitely identified what they called moral imbecility which means he had no concept of a moral ethic. It sounds like you've done a lot of research, is that how you normally approach your parts? Richard: Luckily this is a true story so there is documented evidence. His father was a habitual diary writer so there's a lot of his view of it and it's also a fairly well-documented case because it was a treason trial after the Second World War and there was a lot of public interest in it. There are lots of books and documents you can read and all the characters in the play actually existed so Wikipedia is wonderful! But on the other hand, while the research is useful, in the end what you've got to respond to is the situation in the play and that's what matters, that's what the audience sees. We don't go on stage to regurgitate a load of research. But it's useful to keep it in the back of the mind. So what's in the play - is it one specific incident or does it tell the whole story? Richard: It starts just after the war when he was captured in Italy with Mussolini by Italian Communists. It starts with an interrogation and the play takes place over the course of one year up to and including his trial. And of course, during the dialogues and the scenes there is a discussion of what happened before in his life so you get a picture of that. It's a fairly dramatic time. Ronald Harwood clearly wants to explore the relationship between Jack and his father, mother and brother. That relationship is very central because it's the investigation of the pressure cooker that a treason trial is. One's life is at stake, so hopefully this crunch moment will be very intense and very moving. Without giving too much away the relationship between his father and him is entirely central because in a sense his actions are based on a desperate and vile hatred of his father - but for reasons that I can't possibly disclose because that would explain the play! And it's a world premiere? Richard: It is, we're very lucky and it's the most fantastic play. I read it and thought it was the best thing I'd read for years - really wonderful. And you're creating a role, even though it's a true story? Richard: Yes. When doing a historical figure you are creating it for yourself and the audience for this production, but it's very, very different from doing a well established role in a famous play because there are so many people who have gone before. And of course you're used to doing well-established roles in famous plays?! Richard: [laughs] I'm not really used to it but I have just come from a job where that was the case. We were doing two plays which have been done countless times I should think! Yes - you've just been in the West End and Stratford playing Konstantin in The Seagull directed by Trevor Nunn and were also in his King Lear starring Ian McKellen in the title role? How did you get into those productions because you were still at college weren't you? Richard: Yes - I was phenomenally lucky! Essentially, I completed the first term of my third year of my drama training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. We were doing a production of The Tempest and I was lucky enough to be cast as Prospero in that. Then, that production became part of the RSC's Complete Works series in Stratford in a very minor capacity - we were doing a tour of schools in Stratford. The casting director of the RSC was obviously scouting for young actors and came to see it and saw me. Then, Sam Jones the head of casting up there, gave me a call two months later and asked me to come and audition for the show to play Konstantin. I thought it was a joke, I thought somebody was winding me up! I'd come out of the Swan Theatre in Stratford having done The Tempest there and I saw a promotional poster there for King Lear and The Seagull starring Ian McKellen and directed by Trevor Nunn for an RSC world tour. I thought that would be quite a job to get and four months later I was in it! It was unbelievable. Those two plays I happened to have done at school and seen a lot so they were very close to my heart and to have been involved in them as a first job was literally a dream come true but I couldn't have dreamt it actually! It must be a dream job to be in something with Sir Ian. When you're in a production like that with somebody so experienced, what is their attitude towards the younger actors. Was he helpful? Richard: Oh tremendously. I was terrified, absolutely quaking with fear on the first day. It was a big company of 23, with McKellen obviously at the top of it, and there were lots of other well-known faces and names in the company and I was the new kid. I wasn't the only one but I was the only one who had been cast in such an exposing role. But they were delightful, it was wonderful to find that these incredibly experienced and knowledgeable actors wanted to pass on their expertise. As is said at the end of The History Boys "Pass it on lads" - there's a tradition that needs to be passed on. It was a joy to find out that their enthusiasm had not been dimmed by experience and they were incredibly helpful. But they also knew when to back off, and when to let younger actors create for themselves. He [Sir Ian] was absolutely delightful and of course it was a privilege for me. In King Lear I was at the back doing bits and bobs like messengers and things which are much more what one would expect a first job to be, and it was a real privilege to watch him doing his King Lear for a year from the back of the stage. And the wonderful thing about him and other experienced actors in the company is that they weren't ashamed or afraid to make mistakes which is an incredibly valuable thing to learn. The ability to let something go (to cancel and continue is the phrase we use) and to simply just go on creating and imagining in the moment on the stage is thrilling to watch and thrilling to be a part of. So really you didn't need that last year of drama school?! Richard: [laughs] Well drama school is two things really. On a purely practical and professional level it's a preparation to be employed in the industry, to get jobs, to know how to work and in that sense my training fulfilled that for me because luckily I went straight into a job. The other thing is that it's a wonderful experience and three years is rather too short, it should go on for ten really, all your life! Every play you do is an education. Having to learn on the job, you are just forced into situations where you have to make decisions and you have to do it. That's what's different about drama school and the professional environment. In a professional rehearsal you just have to come up with the goods, in drama school there's a nurturing that goes on, a care for you as a person and that doesn't exist so much in the professional world, you just have to take care of yourself and be incredibly strong and thick skinned - that's something I've really learned over the past year! But I did miss out on the second half of my third year at drama school. It wasn't a difficult decision to go and work for the RSC but on the other hand I would have loved to have finished. I went back to see the final production of a musical that my year were in and that was really rather moving and I felt a little bit estranged from it and that was a shame. There were only 24 people in my year and it's a little fraternity, a club, a family almost. You do get very close to each other and once that breaks it's quite a shift in your life really. Your career has had a flying start and begun with something that you might have had an ambition to do at the start so what's your ambition now?! Richard: I've got plenty of ambitions! I always said I wanted to work for the RSC early in my career and I've done that but I'm not ticking boxes - as an actor one has to take what comes along really. I'm lucky I suppose, that having had this job and had the exposure that I've had around the world, people will have seen it and they may remember it, so the chances are greater that jobs will come along. I don't really know, but I have plenty of ambitions. In my loftier moments I want to play all the classics, do all the great Shakespearian roles, but there are hundreds of things. I haven't ever done any film or TV so that would be wonderful to get into and learn about and of course it's wonderful to do a new play like this! Ronald Harwood. Ronald Harwood is one of the hottest screenwriters in the world, and later this year he will be 74. He has a new stage play, An English Tragedy, playing in London (all right, Watford), and within weeks you will be able see two of his screenplays playing at the same time - Mike Newell's film Love in the Time of Cholera (from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel), and the phenomenal The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel's film derived from Jean-Dominique Bauby's book on what he did after a stroke imprisoned him in his own body and he could only flicker one eyelid. No, these are not commonplace films. For myself, I greatly prefer the Schnabel picture. But these are both "international" projects on a scale of difficulty that might require younger or more glamorous names for screenwriters. Except that Ronald Harwood is glamorous in a field where work and success are all you need. No one does it better. So, when Baz Luhrmann faced difficulties on his forthcoming epic Australia, with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and freely described as the Australian Gone With the Wind, he called Harwood. In 2002, when Roman Polanski came to film The Pianist, sensing that it might be the project to restore him to glory, he went to Ronald Harwood. The Hungarian director István Szábo hired Harwood for Taking Sides (the story of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler) and Being Julia (with Annette Bening playing a great actress). None of those was what you might call a mainstream Hollywood picture, though The Pianist ended up winning Oscars. Furthermore, it was not actually Schnabel who conceived of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - it was Harwood who saw that there might be a movie in a great crisis of inertia. Just as we may rejoice in Harwood's classic demonstration of how a late bloomer flowers, so we have to assume that his glass of irony is kept well-filled. For his is the story of a South African in love with theatre who came to London in the early 1950s with little more than the hope of being an actor or a writer. He may have regretted that the only job he could find was as dresser to Donald Wolfit, the larger-than-life actor- manager who toured cut-price productions of British epic plays in the provinces. Harwood held that humble position for several years through the thick and thin of Wolfit's tirades. In 1971, he wrote a biography of Wolfit and then, less than 10 years later, he retold the story as a play, The Dresser, that went on to be a hit movie, with Albert Finney as Wolfit and Tom Courtenay as the dresser. Harwood got an Academy Award nomination for adapting his own play. For a moment, this looked like the climax of an industrious and admirable career. Harwood had written a series of plays, starting in 1964, with many critical and popular successes. At the same time, he has a lengthy bibliography of novels and several books on the theatre, including tributes to Alec Guinness and John Gielgud. But glory eluded him, until screenwriting was offered as a compromise. He worked for TV in the early 60s. He did a fillm adaptation of Richard Hughes's novel A High Wind in Jamaica, for Alexander Mackendrick, that flopped. He would do anything: he adapted One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (with Tom Courtenay in the lead), and a biopic, Evita Peron, as a TV vehicle for Faye Dunaway. But after The Dresser, his work became more concentrated: The Deliberate Death of a Polish Priest (starring Brian Cox); Mandela (with Danny Glover); The Browning Version (for Mike Figgis and Albert Finney); and Cry, the Beloved Country. A few years later, with The Pianist, he had his own Oscar, and the start of glory. One measure of that is that he is now adapting a script from one of his own novels - The Girl in Melanie Klein - with talk of Tom Courtenay and Eileen Atkins acting in it, under director Peter Yates. Yates will be 79 this year, but why should anyone see that as other than a mark of wisdom and maturity? An English Tragedy by Ronald Harwood. While the world pays tribute to Sir Ronald Harwood, following his death in September 2020 , as a gifted playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter, at PEN we will also remember him as a friend, visionary leader, and a champion of persecuted writers. Ronald Harwood was president of English PEN from 1989 to 1993, then president of PEN International for a four-year term starting in 1993 . These were eventful and significant years for PEN under Harwood’s leadership . At his first PEN congress as international p resident , Harwood welcom ed Salman Rushdie to the stage for a rare public appearance . The following year, he brought together Czech president V á clav Havel , Arthur Miller and Tom Stoppard in an unforgettable panel at the PEN I nternational congress in Prague . (Credit: Pepe Marin, PEN Galicia) As well as champion ing Salman Rushdie’s case , Harwood presided over some of PEN International ’s major campaigns for persecuted writers . This included advocating on behalf of Nigeria’s Ken-Saro Wiwa , Taslima Nasreen from Bangladesh and Farah Sarkoohi from Iran . His legacy was also to strength en the PEN movement. U nder Harwood’s guidance , PEN emba rk ed o n major structural change, which led to the development and approval of n ew international regulations, enhanced governance and the creation of the PEN International board. This process created tensions and challenges, and Harwood’s combination of wit and humour, as well as the way in which he welcomed all voices, were essential for PEN to complete the process of reform successfully. We are pleased to be able to share some tributes from those who knew and worked with Ronald Harwood at PEN and invite his many friends and colleagues around the world to send us your memories to include here. Please email your contributions to membership @englishpen.org. I had the pleasure of working closely with Ronald Harwood when he was President of PEN International, and I chaired PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee. Ronnie brought intelligence, humor and discipline to the running of PEN. A director as well as a playwright among PEN’s many global, and often contradictory, voices, Ronnie determined to keep the organization and PEN’s Assembly of Delegates on a path with a deadline during the year and at PEN Congresses. Ronnie was a superb writer and a passionate advocate for freedom of expression. When circumstances arose that required he serve an extra year as President, even though he was ready to stand down, he took the responsibility. Ironically, my successor that year also had to step aside, and I had to serve an additional year, enhanced by serving with Ronnie. I quote from Ronnie’s acceptance speech as he took on the Presidency of International PEN at the 60 th World Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain in 1993: The world seems to be fragmenting; PEN must never fragment. We have to do what we can do for our fellow-writers and for literature as a united body; otherwise we perish. And our differences are our strength: our different languages, cultures and literatures are our strength. Nothing gives me more pride than to be part of this organization when I come to a Congress and see the diversity of human beings here and know that we all have at least one thing in common. We write….We are not the United Nations.…We cannot solve the world’s problems….Each time we go beyond our remit, which is literature and language and the freedom of expression of writers, we diminish our integrity and damage our credibility….We don’t’ represent governments; we represent ourselves and our Centres. …We are here to serve writers and writing and literature, and that is enough….And let us remember and take pleasure in this: that when the words International PEN are uttered they become synonymous with the freedom from fear. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, PEN International Vice President. Ronald Harwood was a PEN giant. No one else in recent memory has been President of both English PEN and International PEN. In both roles he espoused the rights of the underdog, whether it be a writer unjustly denied free expression or a whole race refused basic human rights. He was also a past chairman of the Royal Society of Literature and President of the Royal Literary Fund. He was a friend to innumerable authors and actors, not just the most eminent such as Harold Pinter or his cousin Antony Sher, but many who were labouring far from the limelight. I often used to reflect on the contrast between his elegant demeanour and love of the bright lights of the West End, where so many of his plays were big successes, and the quiet perseverance of his work behind the scenes on behalf of the victims of injustice. His writing was wide ranging in both subject matter and form. He had his big stage and cinema hits, most notably The Dresser and The Piano , but some of his best work is not as well known as it should be. An example is An English Tragedy , a play about John Amery, who was executed for treason in 1945, which shows Ronnie’s complex humanity at its most thoughtful and compassionate. No mention of Ronald Harwood can be unaccompanied by a tribute to Natasha, his wife of over fifty years. He once told me that the two of them had never had a night apart from the time of their marriage in 1959 to her death in 2013. I like to feel that they are reunited now. Certainly Ronnie is embedded in the story of PEN, in the best of modern British and South African drama, and the affections of so many of us who knew him. Alastair Niven, former English PEN president. The last time I asked Ronnie how he was, he said ‘ I‘m bloody good!’ and hurried towards me on a walking stick to kiss me. His Pilates teacher was expected after tea and I joined them for the first bit of the class – until things advanced beyond my level and I left them to it. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up’ said Ronnie, waving from the floor. Ronald Harwood enchanted everyone. He was fun. He was also formidable. His PEN world was complex but his instinct, aided by his fastidious concentration, was always right. He was tough, physically and morally, and having served four gruelling years in turbulent times as International PEN’s President, he agreed to continue for a further year until Homero Aridjis could manage to take over. It interrupted his writing but he said his work for PEN was more important. I don’t think I’ve heard another writer say that. Gilly Vincent, General Secretary, English PEN (1994-2000) Dear and highly respected Ronald Harwood has left us. Besides the long lasting contribution to theatre and film, experiences of unforgettable dramatic value with a dialogue you recall with a smile of recognition whenever the pictures occur in your mind, I will keep his memory close to my heart, remembering our many encounters connected to our common affection and work for PEN International. We did not always agree about the way forward for PEN, but even when we ended up in disputes, it was a pure joy to listen to his way of arguing, and his view was always worth listening to. The overshadowing atmosphere was always marked by our commitment to our organization, and most of the time our discussions ended with one of Ronnie’s unforgettable ways of delivering an accurate and to the point humorous remark. During his years as President, he served with burning energy and long after his term was ended, he went on making highly valuable contributions to PEN. When asked, he never turned down a request for assistance. One memory I keep with special affection is connected to the film One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It was shot at a copper mine close to the little town of Røros in Norway, where I happen to have a cabin close by. It was mid – winter and the temperatures went down to around minus 40 degrees Celsius. One snow storm followed another. Ronnie claimed this was the worst experience in his entire life, and he could simply not understand how I could survive in these surroundings. When I told him that I stayed there for months writing, he looked at me with pure horror. ‘I always thought there was something seriously wrong with you,’ he laughed. I believe the reindeer casserole and the Norwegian aquavit I served him softened his impression of being left in hell, but I am afraid this was only temporary. Never mind, this memory will always stay with me. May he rest in peace. Eugene Schoulgin, PEN International, Vice President. His presence always attuned one to the comedy of life: he was a wonderful writer and a great citizen of the theatre and literary community. A man of consummate generosity. Dr Lisa Appignanesi, former English PEN president and chair of the Royal Society of Literature. Ronnie was a lovely man. He had warmth, integrity, wit and compassion, and a gift for friendship, all of which he brought to whatever he did. Although I knew and admired his plays and other writing, I didn’t know him well until I succeeded Elizabeth Paterson on her retirement as Administrative Director in early 1997, when he and I worked very closely on the revision of the international regulations. It was a quite difficult period lasting three or four months, and intense – but somehow it was fun, so much was it lightened by his sense of humour and wit, and his highly companionable way of working. His vast commitment to PEN ran side by side with his writing. At the Congress in Guadalajara in November 1996, in the unexpected absence of candidates for the office of International President, Ronnie agreed to serve a further nine months on the strict condition that a successor would be found by the time of the Edinburgh Congress. As he said at the time, he was a working writer and needed to get back to concentrating on his writing; he had only agreed to stay in office because of his love of PEN. In his President’s report at the opening of the Congress he wrote a powerful justification for PEN’s existence: I have concentrated in this speech on my activities. Let me please make it clear that in every way, these things are secondary to the great heartbeat of our organisation, which is the volume of literary, poetic and dramatic work produced by our members day in and day out… The very reason that we are able to fight for the freedom of writers, that we concern ourselves with Linguistic Rights or with Peace or with the rights of women authors, rests entirely on our credibility as writers. Whether our works reach a large or small public, whether they are acclaimed or damned or, worst, ignored, is irrelevant. The very weight of our collective contribution to the culture of the civilised world is the bedrock of each and every PEN Centre individually and International PEN as a whole. May it always be so. Jane Spender, Former Administrative Director of International PEN. A very English Nazi. Even up to the final seconds before he swung from the hangman's rope, John Amery maintained the facade of the perfect English gentleman. As the executioner Albert Pierrepoint approached him on the gallows, Amery extended his hand and said in his silky, upper-class tones: "I have always wanted to meet you, Mr Pierrepoint. But under rather different circumstances." Pierrepoint smiled, took the proffered hand, gently spun Amery around and pinioned his arms behind his back. Three seconds later, he plummeted through the trap door and into the darkness of death. John Amery may have enjoyed the background, breeding and education, he attended Harrow, Winston Churchill's old school, of a typical English gent. But his name is forever stained by the stigma of treachery. Amery atteded Harrow the same school as Churchill. He was an ardent admirer of Hitler, joined the Nazi cause and broadcast propaganda for the Germans during the Second World War. After his capture in 1945 he pleaded guilty to treason in a sensational trial at the Old Bailey and was hanged that year. A new play, An English Tragedy by Ronald Harwood, tells the gripping tale of Amery and his wartime treason. It opens on Friday at the Watford Palace Theatre and is expected to transfer to the West End. The story of Amery is one of mental instability, virulent antiSemitism and self-delusion. He was no ordinary traitor, merely inflamed by Hitler's rhetoric and power-crazed doctrines. His views and acts of treason would prove a great embarrassment to the British Establishment, largely because he was the son of Leo Amery, a parliamentarian and Secretary for India in Winston Churchill's wartime Cabinet. Leo Amery was one of the most widely respected politicians of his day and, with his Harrow contemporary Winston Churchill, he fought a fierce battle against the large majority among the English ruling class who were willing to appease Hitler and his plans. DURING the Thirties, Amery senior constantly warned in speeches about the rise of Nazism and how Hitler was rearming the country in preparation for war. He came from a Hungarian Jewish family who had settled in England and converted to Protestantism. There was much anti-Semitism in the Establishment in pre-war Britain and it is possible, due to his father's secrecy, that his traitor son John never knew of his own Jewish heritage. John was fiercely anti-Semitic. Like his hero Hitler, he believed ardently that there was a world conspiracy between international Jewry and communism. He was a staunch anti- communist and was convinced that Russian leader Joseph Stalin had a master plan that would involve world domination. He willingly grasped the fascist doctrines of Nazi Germany and went in search of fellow believers. As a young man, Amery's behaviour was that of a wayward, conceited fop. In the Thirties he attempted to break into the film industry but failed dismally due to a combination of arrogance and ignorance. It was during this period that he romanced glamorous actress Una Wing who had been attracted to the louche figure and accepted his proposal of marriage. But their union was doomed, wrecked by his adultery and drinking. After they divorced he took up with a moody Frenchwoman, Jeannine Bard, and together they caroused around wartime Berlin, sending their drink bills to Hitler's private office. In the end, Bard choked on her vomit in 1943 and Amery narrowly escaped a charge of manslaughter. Amery also had a love of fast cars and at one point had picked up 74 motoring offences. There is some mystery over his movements during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 when he claimed to his family that he had joined Franco's Nationalists. He even said he was awarded a medal of honour while serving as an intelligence officer. HOWEVER, it is probable that Amery was lying and only first visited Spain in 1939, well after the civil war had ended. Staying for just a few weeks, he returned to France where he remained after the German invasion in 1940. In September 1942, Amery went to Berlin and consulted with the German English Committee, a body set up to seek out fascist sympathisers among the British. Amery suggested the Germans should form a British anti-communist legion, one whose members would be nativeborn Britons. Hitler was greatly impressed by the articulate Amery and his ideas, even giving his permission for him to remain in Germany as a personal guest. In 1943 Amery started to recruit for a unit aimed at employing up to 100 British men for propaganda purposes. He considered that a prime source for such recruitment would be among disillusioned inmates of the PoW camps in Germany. Amery's first recruiting drive was for what he called The British Legion of St George. He travelled to a PoW camp, addressing 50 prisoners from various British Commonwealth countries, and distributed leaflets. His first effort was a flop but he persisted and recruited some men to his cause, renaming this treacherous outfit the British Free Corps. But in the end, those recruited saw through Amery's ideas and he was left with only one volunteer. One reason for his failure was put down to Amery's patronising, upper-class manner. The men, who were mostly working class or rough and ready colonials, were not attracted by Amery's grandeur. Eventually the Nazi authorities decided that Amery's services were no longer needed but by now he was regularly broadcasting Nazi propaganda to Britain, and like his fellow traitor, William "Lord HawHaw" Joyce, was something of a national joke back in his home country. In his broadcasts he attempted to appeal to what he considered was the common sense of the average Briton. In a typical broadcast from Berlin on November 19, 1942, he claimed: "British boys are dying to serve no British interest but for the interests of a small clique of utterly unscrupulous men. There is more than enough room in the world for Germany and Britain." Amery broadcast from Berlin until late 1944 when he travelled to Northern Italy to support Italian dictator Mussolini, who had been ousted from power the previous year but with Nazi help had escaped arrest. In the final weeks of the war, Amery went into hiding but was soon captured by Italian partisans ? some of whom would have happily executed him on the spot. However, it was decided he should be handed over to the British authorities. It was at this point that a young Captain Alan Whicker, then with the British Army Film Unit and later to become one of the most famous faces of television, heard that Amery was being kept in a Milan jail. Sensing a scoop, Whicker, a trained journalist, appealed on Radio Milan for Amery's whereabouts. Within minutes, partisans made arrangements for Amery to be handed over to him. WHEN Whicker arrived he found an unshaven Amery still wearing his fascist black shirt. Relief spread over his face on being confronted by a British Army captain. "Thank God you're here, " he said. "I thought they were going to shoot me." In a preliminary hearing Amery claimed he was not a Nazi and had never attacked Britain. He was, he argued, an anti-communist and harboured no anger towards the country of his birth. Amery's younger brother Julian (later to become a Tory Cabinet minister) tried to save John by maintaining that he had taken out Spanish citizenship by producing fraudulent documents, and therefore would have been unable to commit treason against Britain. But all attempts at any form of defence were unexpectedly abandoned on the first day of his trial, November 28, 1945 when, to the astonishment of the court, Amery pleaded guilty to eight charges of treason, a move that inevitably meant he faced the death penalty. His reason for the sudden decision was a last attempt at honour. He did not want his family to suffer the indignities of a long trial. The entire hearing lasted only eight minutes and Amery was brought before Mr Justice Humphreys. Standing in the dock, a small smile playing round his lips, Amery listened in silence as the long indictment was read out. He had long black hair, curling up at the back, wore a heavy overcoat and sported a black and yellow scarf. As each charge was read out he stroked his chin with his forefinger, listening intently. And when asked to plead, there was a tense silence, until he said in a firm voice: "I plead guilty to all counts." The judge was concerned whether Amery fully understood the implications of his plea. He did ? and the black cap was placed on the judge's head. Facing Amery, who did not flinch, he said: "I am satisfied that you knew what you did and that you did it intentionally and deliberately after you had received warning from your fellow countrymen that the course you were pursuing amounted to high treason. "They called you a traitor and you heard them but in spite of that you continued in your course. You now stand a self-confessed traitor to your King and country and you have forfeited your right to live." Amery betrayed not one flicker of emotion as sentence was passed and he squared his shoulders as he was taken down to the cells. His story came to its dramatic end at exactly a minute past 9am on December 19, 1945, when hangman Pierrepoint dispatched John Amery to the history books of treason.