John Bowen was born in India in 1924 and reared by aunts and grandparents in the UK. After an uneventful war, he went to Oxford to read History. He began his writing life as a novelist and was recruited to television drama by the director, Peter Wood, then began writing for the stage. His first play, I Love You, Mrs Patterson opened at the St Martin's Theatre in 1964. His second, After The Rain, has been produced all over Europe as well as the USA, Canada and Australia, as has his third the double-bill Little Boxes. Of his other plays, Singles and The Corsican Brothers were first produced at the Greenwich Theatre, The Disorderly Women at Manchester, Florence Nightingale at Canterbury, Heil Caesar at the Midland Arts. He has also adapted Marivaux for the Chichester Arts Festival and Moliere for Lancaster.