Sir David Hare

Sir David Hare FRSL, OL

Field’s 1960-1964, Playwright, screenwriter, theatre and film director

Sir David Hare was described by the Washington Post as “the premiere political dramatist writing in English.” He has written over thirty stage plays and thirty screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy’s View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss and Straight Line Crazy. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby and The White Crow among others. His television films include Licking Hitler, The Worricker Trilogy, Collateral and Roadkill. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the 20th century, five of the top one hundred were his. 

In 1997 the French government honoured David as an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres, and in 1998 the British knighted him for services to the theatre. 

David has said, ‘I was lucky to be at Lancing in the early 1960s when it was on the cusp of change - from being an austere training camp for traditional Christianity into a liberal humanist school with a strong love of the arts. My brilliant teachers Donald Bancroft and Harry Guest and my High Tory housemaster, Patrick Halsey led me to the right plays, the right films, and the right books. Who could ask for more?’