Photo courtesy of Independent.co.uk
Post-GradAfter college, he began his career as a stand-up comedian. As a comedian, he had a desire, “to be able to control a room with 200 people in it, and to make them laugh. And I learnt how to do it. It is not hard if you have the will.” Although he does not perform stand-up anymore, his experiences continue to informs his plays. From the British Council, “The sometimes cold eye he casts over his distraught characters renders them so…because they often find themselves in agonizing situations, the characters lash out with ferocious and hilarious one-liners worthy of the finest stand-up.” The British defines his work not as situational comedy, but comedy of wit and bleak irony.
|
AboutPatrick Albert Crispin Marber (Born 19th September 1964) is an English comedian, playwright, director, puppeteer, actor, and screenwriter. He was born in London in 1964, age 52. He was educated at Wadham College in Oxford for English. He worked as a stand-up comedian for a few years and then co-wrote comedy programs that were fe (British Council) (Encylopedia of World Biography)atured on Radio 4 and BBC2. His most famous play, Closer, premiered at the Royal National Theatre in May 1997 then going to the West End in March 1998. It became an international hit and won many awards including the Laurence Oliver Award for Best New Play. A screen adaptation, written by Marber, was released in 2004, with mostly positive reviews and an A-List cast including Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman.
Growing up, Marber’s father worked in the financial district of London, living in the middle class neighborhood in Wimbledon. He was expelled at St. Paul’s school because he was surrounded by bad people. The punk culture occurred and he displayed bad behavior that incited his exit at St. Paul’s. He later enrolled in another school in Surrey where he was an athlete in track and field. His appreciation for Albert Camus and Franz Kafka helped his love for the plays he saw with his parents and later on his own. In Back Stage West, Marber reflected on his childhood saying, “From about the age of 13 or 14, I was one of those kids hanging out in the bar, in the foyer, in the bookshops of the National Theatre, seeing two shows a day on student standby tickets.” |