Kenneth McLeish

John Kenneth Tyrrell McLeish, known as Kenneth McLeish was a British writer, playwright and translator. McLeish, "the most widely respected and prolific translator of drama in Britain", translated all the surviving [Theatre of ancient Greece|classical Greek plays], most plays by Henrik Ibsen and Georges Feydeau, and individual plays by Plautus, Molière, Alfred Jarry, August Strindberg, Ödön von Horváth and Eugène Marin Labiche.

Life

McLeish was born in Glasgow on 10 October 1940. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School, where he learnt French, Latin and Greek. He taught himself Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. He studied Music and Classics at Worcester College, Oxford before becoming a teacher. He married Valerie Heath in 1965. In 1975 he gave up teaching to write and translate full-time.
McLeish's translations were staged by companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company the National Theatre, the Gate Theatre, Cheek by Jowl and Actors Touring Company. Successful productions included Deborah Warner's 1988 Electra for the RSC, Katie Mitchell's 1991 Women of Troy at the Gate, and Stephen Unwin's' 1996 Hedda Gabler for English Touring Theatre.
He wrote several original plays and filmscripts, including Vice at the Vicarage for Frankie Howerd and Orpheus for Actors Touring Company. He also wrote and edited a variety of general literary guides, several in collaboration with his wife.

Through Greek eyes: Greek civilisation in the words of Greek writers, 1974
Through Roman eyes: Greek civilisation in the words of Roman writers, 1976
The serpent son = Oresteia by Aeschylus. 1978.
The poems of Catullus by Catullus. 1978.
Clouds; Women in power; Knights by Aristophanes. 1979.
The list of books, 1980
The theatre of Aristophanes, 1980
The shining stars: Greek legends of the zodiac, 1981
The Anti-Booklist, 1981
Gods and men: myths and legends from the world's religions, 1981
The Oxford first companion to music, 1982
The Penguin companion to the arts in the twentieth century, 1985
Longman guide to Shakespeare's characters: a who's who of Shakespeare, 1985
The Seven Wonders of the World, 1985
Listeners' guide to classical music: an introduction to the great classical composers and their works, 1986
Longman guide to Bible quotations, 1986
Bloomsbury good reading guide, 1988
Bloomsbury good reading guide to murder, crime fiction, and thrillers, 1990
Bloomsbury good reading guide to biography & autobiography, 1991
Key ideas in human thought, 1993
Myth: myths and legends of the world explored, 1996
Aristotle, 1997