Nick Drake (poet)
Nick Drake (born 1961) is a British poet, playwright, screenwriter, librettist, and novelist.[1][2]
Early life and education
[edit]Nick Drake was born near London, England, in 1961.[3] His father was from Prague, Czechoslovakia, and his mother from Northampton.[2]
He first went to school in Cookham, Berkshire, and then St Albans Grammar School. He attended Magdalene College, Cambridge.[2]
Career
[edit]Drake has been Literary Associate at the National Theatre, then Literary Manager at the Bush Theatre in Shepherd's Bush, and then Head of Development at Intermedia Films.[3]
He has also taught creative writing at the Arvon Foundation and Goldsmiths' College.[3]
Drake became a full-time freelance writer in 2002.[3]
Writing
[edit]His poems include "From The Song Dynasty"[4] and "Static".[5]
"The Farewell Glacier" was the name of both a poem and a collection by Drake, published in 2012, after he had participated in Cape Farewell's 2010 Arctic Expedition to Svalbard.[3]
Drake's "choral play" for the stage, All the Angels, was first performed in 2015 at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre.[6]
He wrote the screenplay for the Australian film based on philosopher Raimond Gaita's autobiography, Romulus, My Father, which starred Eric Bana as Gaita's father.[3]
Chocolate and Salt (Mandeville Press 1990) earned a Society of Authors/Eric Gregory Award. The Man in the White Suit (Bloodaxe Books 1999) won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. It included 'The Foley Artist' which won second prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition 1996.
The Farewell Glacier (Bloodaxe 2012) was a book-length poem in voices both human and non-human, conceived in response to his participation in Cape Farewell's 2010 Arctic Expedition to Svalbard to witness climate change. The poems were recorded by United Visual Artists as the soundtrack for High Arctic, an installation at the National Maritime Museum in 2011.[7]
Stage plays include Angel (Salisbury Playhouse/Bristol Old Vic), an adaptation of Lope de Vega's Peribanez at Cambridge Arts Theatre (1999), Success (National Theatre Connections Project 2009), To Reach the Clouds adapted Philippe Petit's 2002 memoir of his high wire walk between the Twin Towers for Nottingham Playhouse in 2006.[8] His "choral play" All the Angels, about the first performance of Handel's Messiah in Dublin, ran at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2015 and 2016, and was revived at Smock Alley Theatre Dublin in 2021 by Rough Magic.
He co-wrote (with Lucinda Coxon) the screenplay for One Life (2023) starring Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Flynn. The screenplay was adapted from If It's Not Impossible, the biography of Sir Nicholas Winton by his daughter Barbara Winton.
He wrote the screenplay for the 2007 Australian film based on philosopher Raimond Gaita's memoir Romulus My Father, which starred Eric Bana, Kodi Smitt-McPhee and Franka Potente.
It won Best Film at the AFI Awards and was shortlisted for Best Adapted Screenplay.
He adapted the first part of Making Noise Quietly from Robert Holman's play for Dominic Dromgoole's 2019 film.[9]
He has written libretti for two operas created with composer Tansy Davies: Between Worlds (2015) for ENO, directed by Deborah Warner at the Barbican, and Cave (2018), directed by Lucy Bailey for London Sinfonietta, with Mark Padmore and Elaine Mitchener.[10]
He has collaborated with composer Rachel Portman on Earth Song (2019) commissioned by BBC Radio 3, including quotations from Greta Thunberg and Tipping Points (2023) with violinist Niklas Liepe, a work of six poems on the climate emergency and six corresponding musical movements.[11]
Work
[edit]Rahotep novels
[edit]- Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead 2007
- Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows 2010
- Egypt: The Book of Chaos 2011
Poetry collections
[edit]- The Man in the White Suit 1999
- From the Word Go 2007
- The Farewell Glacier 2012
- Out of Range 2018
- Chocolate and Salt 1990
Film and TV
[edit]- Romulus My Father
- Making Noise Quietly
- One Life
Stage Plays
[edit]- All The Angels
- Success
- To Walk the Clouds
- Stasiland
- New version of Lope de Vega's Peribanez and the Comendador of Ocana
Opera Libretti
[edit]- Tansy Davies Between Worlds
- Tansy Davies Cave
Words for Music
[edit]- Rachel Portman Earth Song
- Rachel Portman Tipping Points
- Tansy Davies The Ice Core Sample Says
- Tansy Davies This Love
- Tansy Davies Static
Radio
[edit]- The Farewell Glacier
- Angel / Mr Sweet Talk
References
[edit]- ^ "Next Generation Poets". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 21 May 2009. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
- ^ a b c "About". Nick Drake. 22 December 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f "Nick Drake". Cape Farewell. 10 September 2021. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
- ^ "Poems for a wedding". The Guardian. 22 April 2011.
- ^ "Static by Nick Drake". The Guardian. 5 June 2004.
- ^ Wicker, Tom (9 December 2016). "All the Angels: Handel and the First Messiah". The Stage.
- ^ Admin (14 July 2011). "High Arctic". Cape Farewell. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
- ^ Hickling, Alfred (24 June 2006). "To Reach the Clouds". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
- ^ Dromgoole, Dominic (19 July 2019), Making Noise Quietly (Drama), Matthew Tennyson, Luke Thompson, Barbara Marten, Open Palm Films, retrieved 11 November 2024
- ^ "CAVE". London Sinfonietta. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
- ^ "Rachel Portman - Rachel Portman: Tipping Points, Vivaldi/Kerschek: The New Four Seasons | CD". www.sonyclassical.com. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
