English playwright Mark Ravenhill was BOTD in 1966. Born in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, he developed an early interest in theatre, and studied drama at Bristol University. In 1990, aged 24, he was diagnosed with HIV, at the time considered a death sentence, and lost his boyfriend and several friends to the illness. He became a playwright, turning heads with his sexually explicit 1995 play Fist. He is best known for his 1996 play Shopping and Fucking, a bleakly funny and expletive-ridden portrait of nihilistic queer youth numbing themselves with sex, drugs and empty consumerism. Premiering at London’s Royal Court Theatre, it became a theatrical sensation, shocking audiences and critics with its title and explicit rape scenes, transferring to the West End and later touring around the world. The play placed Ravenhill at the centre of a new confrontational movement in British theatre, later called In-Yer-Face Theatre, alongside playwrights Sarah Kane, Anthony Neilson and Martin McDonagh. His later works including Handbag, a queer tribute to Oscar Wilde‘s play The Importance of Being Earnest; Mother Clap’s Molly House, a sex comedy set in an 19th century male brothel; and the dystopian drama The Cut, first starring Ian McKellen. Appointed writer-in-residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2011, he wrote a new translation of Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo and Voltaire‘s Candide. A frequent collaborator with queer artists, he co-wrote the one-person biographical show A Life in Three Acts for performer Bette Bourne, the musical theatre piece Ten Plague with Marc Almond, and a musical version of David Walliams‘ young adult novel The Boy in the Dress. He attracted a different type of controversy as the co-writer of Vicious, an innuendo-laden TV sitcom starring McKellen and Derek Jacobi as a bickering, bitchy gay couple. A ratings success, the show ran for three seasons, though was criticised by LGBTQ viewers for presenting outdated stereotypes of gay men. His latest play Imo and Ben, portraying the conflicted friendship between composers Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst, premiered in 2024. Ravenhill lives in London, where he teaches playwriting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

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