Photograph of the Month - September 2013

Past display archive
1 September - 30 September 2013

Room 31

Free

NPG x137677  - © National Portrait Gallery, London

Ann Jellicoe
By Michael Peto
Modern bromide print from original negative,
October 1957
x137677
Given by © University of Dundee
Michael Peto Collection, 2013

Playwright and director, Ann Jellicoe (b.1927) trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Her first play The Sport of my Mad Mother (1956) won a prize in a playwriting competition run by the Observer, and was produced at the Royal Court Theatre, where photographer Roger Mayne took productions stills. Jellicoe later married Mayne in 1962. Her best known play The Knack (Royal Court Theatre, 1962) was subsequently made into the award winning film directed by Richard Lester, starring Rita Tushingham (1965). In the 1970s Jellicoe pioneered the concept of community plays, establishing The Colway Trust (now Claque Theatre) in 1978.

This recently acquired portrait is shown for the first time to coincide with the opening of the display Michael Peto Photographs: Mandela to McCartney which can be seen in Room 32 from 17 September. The portrait is shown alongside a further study of Ann Jellicoe by Roger Mayne, and a copy of Pauline Boty’s programme cover design for The Knack (1962).

Previous Photographs of the Month