Arnold Wesker F.R.S.L was knighted in 2006 for 'services to drama'. He has written over forty-three plays, two opera libretti, various mechanical adaptations; four volumes of short stories, a children's book, and a novel; two volumes of essays, an autobiography, a diary,and a book on journalism; and recently his first volume of poetry. His plays have been produced in cities from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, from Paris to Moscow, from Montreal to Zurich, and The Kitchen - his most performed play has been performed yearly somewhere or other around the world for the last fifty years, and recently was revived by The National Theatre in 2011. Arnold Wesker was the recently featured in the Guardian ahead of revivals of his plays Chicken Soup With Barley (The Royal Court) and The Kitchen (The National Theatre): Guardian interview | Arnold Wesker

In The Friends (1970), Esther is diagnosed with leukaemia, causing her friends to reassess their working-class identity, their imagined achievements as well as their own mortality. Bluey (1993) is a play about repressed memory resurfacing and three imagined futures that the protagonist cannot muster the courage to confront. In Men Die Women Survive (1990) a trio of estranged wives gather around the dinner table. As they conduct a post-mortem on their failed relationships a tale of betrayal and revenge emerges. Telling the story of a 44-year-old actress Gertie and her influence on Sam, a black teenager working as a car-park attendant, Wild Spring (1992) explores acting as a metaphor for the false images of ourselves with which we fall in love.