Early Life

Ronald Hayman was born on May 4, 1932 in Bournemouth, England to John and Sadie Hayman. He was educated at St Paul's School in London and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, where he earned a B.A. in 1954 and an M.A. in 1963. He served in the Royal Air Force for a one year duty, from 1950-1951.

After reading English at Cambridge in 1954, Hayman went to Germany for two years, mainly to write. He became involved in professional theatre after playing the lead in Love's Labour's Lost with English amateurs in Berlin. He then attended drama school and acted for three years in rep and on television.

Writing Career

His first play, The End of an Uncle, was staged at Wimbledon in 1959. He made his debut as a director with Jean Genet's Deathwatch at the Arts Theatre in 1960 and in 1961 was awarded an ABC Television traineeship, which took him to Northampton for a year as assistant producer. He also directed Bertolt Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities and Robin Maugham's The Servant. Hayman has directed at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Farnham, the Edinburgh Festival, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, and Guildford, and for Open Space. His one-man show with Max Adrian as George Bernard Shaw transferred to the West End and went on a world tour.

He has been a regular contributor to the Arts page of The Times and to the New Review. He broadcasts on arts programmes and has lectured for the University of London Department of English Literature. In the 1970s he lectured on Shakespeare and the traditions of English acting for the Tufts University of London program.

His 1995 play Playing the Wife is based on August Strindberg's second marriage to the Austrian Frida Uhl.