Bernard Kops


Bernard Kops was a British dramatist, memoirist, poet and novelist.

Early life

Born in 1926 and raised in Stepney Green in London's East End, the son of Dutch-Jewish immigrants, Bernard Kops was present at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936. He was evacuated from London in 1939, and recounted that experience in episode two of Thames Television's TV series, The World at War, first broadcast in 1973.

Career

His first play, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, was produced at the Oxford Playhouse in 1957. It is considered to be one of the keystones of the "New Wave" in British 'kitchen sink' drama. First novel, Awake For Mourning, followed the next year and has been appraised by critic Stewart Home as "ahead of its time". Ken Worpole has described Kops' first volume of autobiography, The World Is A Wedding, as "one of the most important post-war English autobiographies".
His subsequent plays include Enter Solly Gold, Ezra, Playing Sinatra and The Dreams of Anne Frank. He also wrote extensively for radio and television. His radio play Monster Man is about the creator of "King Kong", Willis O'Brien.
In 1971-2, Kops wrote two series of sitcom Alexander the Greatest for ATV.
Kops wrote the television movie script Just One Kid for director/producer John Goldschmidt; the film was broadcast on the ITV Network in 1974, and won a Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival. Kops then wrote the television film It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow, about the Bethnal Green tube disaster of 1943, also for John Goldschmidt, and this was nominated for an International Emmy Award for Drama Series.
In addition to plays, novels and autobiography, he published volumes of poetry, and also wrote travelogues, including a series of articles about a trip to the United States and another about a journey to China, both written for The Guardian.

Personal life and death

In 1956 Kops married Erica Eve Gordon; they had four children. The couple were the models for characters Mannie and Miriam Katz in Colin MacInnes' novel Absolute Beginners.
In 1975, suffering from drug addiction, Kops made a suicide attempt; he wrote about the incident and his successful journey to sobriety in his second autobiography, Shalom Bomb: Scenes from My Life.
In 2009, Kops was awarded a civil list pension in recognition for services to literature.
In 2016 filmmaker Jill Campbell directed a documentary on Bernard Kops, The Hamlet of Canfield Gardens, referencing his first play and longstanding West Hampstead address.
Kops died on 25 February 2024, at the age of 97.

Selected bibliography

Novels

  • Awake for Mourning
  • Motorbike
  • Yes from No-Man's Land
  • The Dissent of Dominick Shapiro
  • By the Waters of Whitechapel
  • The Passionate Past of Gloria Gaye
  • Settle Down Simon Katz
  • Partners
  • On Margate Sands
  • The Odyssey of Samuel Glass

    Plays

  • The Hamlet of Stepney Green
  • The Dream Of Peter Mann
  • Four Plays
  • Playing Sinatra
  • Dreams Of Anne Frank
  • Plays One
  • Plays Two
  • Plays Three

    Poetry

  • Poems
  • Poems and Songs
  • An Anemone For Antigone
  • Erica I Want To Read You Something
  • For the Record – Poems
  • Barricades In West Hampstead
  • Grandchildren and Other Poems
  • Where Do People Go
  • This Room in the Sunlight: Collected Poems
  • Anne Frank's Fragments from Nowhere
  • Love, Death and Other Joys

    Autobiography & misc.

  • The World is a Wedding
  • Neither Your Honey Nor Your Sting: An Offbeat History of the Jews
  • Shalom Bomb: Scenes from My Life
  • Bernard Kops’ East End

    Secondary literature

  • William Baker and Jeanette Roberts Shumaker: Bernard Kops - fantasist, London Jew, apocalyptic humorist, Madison : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014,.