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Reggie Oliver (writer)

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Reggie Oliver (born 1952, London) is a playwright, biographer and writer of ghost stories.

Reggie Oliver went to Eton (Newcastle Scholar, 1970, Oppidan Scholar) and Oxford (University College, BA Hons 1975) and has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975.

He has worked in radio, television, films, and theatre, both in the West End and outside London. He was a founding member of the late Sir Anthony Quayle’s Compass Theatre, and both played the part of Traverse and understudied Sir Anthony in the tour and West End run of The Clandestine Marriage in 1984.

His plays include Imaginary Lines (which was first produced and directed by Alan Ayckbourn at Scarborough in 1985 and has since been translated into several languages), Absolution (King’s Head, 1983), Back Payments (King’s Head, 1985), Taking Liberties (Wolsey, Ipswich, 1996), Put Some Clothes on, Clarisse! (Duchess Theatre, London, 1989), and Winner Takes All, described by Michael Billington as "the funniest evening in London" when it was revived at the Orange Tree Theatre in 2000. His play A Portrait of Two Artists was performed on Radio 3 in 1989.

Oliver's biography of Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed, was published by Bloomsbury in 1998, and he is a contributor to the historical magazine History Today. He has written about ghost stories for such journals as Supernatural Tales, All Hallows and Weirdly Supernatural.

He lives in Suffolk and is married to the artist and actress Joanna Dunham.

Writing

Oliver's horror fiction first appeared in Christopher Barker's journal "Weirdly Supernatural". Barker then proceeded to publish Oliver's first two collections "The Dreams Of Cardinal Vittorini" and "The Complete Symphonies Of Adolf Hitler" under The Haunted River imprint. The former was nominated for an International Horror Guild Award and the latter short-listed by the Dracula Society for the Children Of The Night award. Both books received favourable praise from reviewers in such journals as "Weird Tales" and "All Hallows".

In the small press magazine All Hallows # 34, Jim Rockhill praised Oliver's The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini, noting:

“Oliver’s ability to create a sense of time and place in every one of these stories is exemplary...As a work of spiritual terror it has few peers.... Thomas Ligotti and Matt Cardin are the only authors writing today who equal the assurance demonstrated by the author of this tale in ripping away the veil separating mundane reality from the shrieking abyss it conceals.”

Ramsey Campbell has also written positively about the same work: “Oliver’s sharp eye for character and ear for dialogue never desert him.”[citation needed]

His experiences in the world of academe, the Church of England, and the art world have all provided inspiration for his work. Some of his work is set within the rather seedy end of show business, a world in which, as a playwright, theatre director and actor, he has had ample experience. In All Hallows # 41, Douglas Campbell wrote of Oliver's story “The Skins”:

I find it hard to believe that there wasn’t some kind of a dare involved when Oliver set out to write a tale about a haunted pantomime horse, but the story itself is an unforgettable piece, drawing to a grotesque and pathetic climax in a horribly plausible world of down-at-heel theatre folk.

He has pastiched a number of styles and authors, from Restoration comedy and Sixteenth century mystical texts to Oscar Wilde and M. R. James. A story in Arthur Machen's style resulted in his winning the Friends of Arthur Machen short story competition in 2005.

Oliver's work has appeared in a number of anthologies including Acquainted with the Night and Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 19. He is currently acting as consultant on a project which will see all of M. R. James's ghost stories released on CD.

Publications

Plays

  • Imaginary Lines (Samuel French 1987)
  • Put Some Clothes on, Clarisse! (Samuel French 1990)
  • The Music Lovers (Samuel French 1992)
  • Winner Takes All (Samuel French 2001)

Biography

  • Out of the Woodshed, the Life of Stella Gibbons (Bloomsbury 1998)

Fiction

  • The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini, and Other Strange Stories (Haunted River 2003)
  • The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler (Haunted River 2005)
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