A Taste of Honey is the first play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, written when she was 18. It was initially intended as a novel, but she turned it into a play because she hoped to revitalize British theatre and to address social issues that she felt were not being presented. The play was first premiered at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, on 27 May 1958. The production then transferred to the larger Wyndham's Theatre in the West End on 10 February 1959. The play was adapted into an award-winning film of the same title in 1961.
A Taste of Honey is set in Salford in northwestern England in the 1950s. It tells the story of Jo, a seventeen-year-old working class girl, and her mother, Helen, who is presented as crude and sexually indiscriminate. Helen leaves Jo alone in their new flat after she begins a relationship with Peter, a rich lover who is younger than her. At the same time Jo begins a romantic relationship with Jimmy, a black sailor. He proposes marriage but then goes to sea, leaving Jo pregnant and alone. She finds lodgings with a homosexual acquaintance, Geoffrey, who assumes the role of surrogate father. Helen returns after leaving her lover and the future of Jo's new home is put into question.
It was re broadcast on september 2010, exactly 50 years later on BBC 4.Links to my play
the difficulties of a teen pregnancy at a time when children were frowned upon when born out of wedlock. This links to my play as my main character struggles through the stigma of being pregnant from her parents and school friends. Also, the difficulties in having a baby and the father leaves mirrors my play. The daughter in this film follows in her mother's footsteps in that she has a baby in her teenage years as well. This is similar to my plot in which the girl's mother had her young, the only difference being the pregnant teen's mother in my play married the girl's father when she discovered she was pregnant.
