King-Hall, Stephen
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
(1893-1966) UK naval officer, politician – MP for National Labour 1939-1942 – broadcaster and author; much of his early journalism was written under undisclosed pseudonyms; brother of Lou King-Hall. His military experiences (1914-1929), during active service in World War One and afterwards, influenced his work as a writer – especially the long series of admonitory newsletters he published from 1936 for thirty years, first as the King-Hall News Letter, and later under other names. Posterity (1927 chap), a play, is fantasy; it appears also in Three Plays and a Plaything (coll 1933) along with "The Republican Princess", a Ruritanian spoof. In Post-War Pirate (1931) a submarine uses an Invention – a new kind of gas – to disable shipping. Bunga-Bunga (1932) is a Satire set on an Island where anything is permitted. Number 10 Downing Street (1948), a play which depicts an occupied UK, takes place in the mid-1950s. His last novel, Men of Destiny; Or, the Moment of No Return (1960; vt Moment of No Return 1961), is again set in the Near Future, on the cusp of World War Three. King-Hall was knighted in 1954 and received a life peerage in 1966, a few months before his death. [JC]
William Stephen Richard King-Hall, Baron King-Hall
born London: 21 January 1893
died London: 2 June 1966
works
- Post-War Pirate (London: Methuen and Co, 1931) [hb/]
- Bunga-Bunga (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1932) [hb/Sylvia Bergin]
- Men of Destiny; Or, the Moment of No Return (London: K-H Services (1960) Ltd, 1960) [hb/]
- Moment of No Return (New York: Ballantine Books, 1961) [vt of the above: pb/]
plays
- Posterity (London: The Hogarth Press, 1927) [play: chap: pb/]
- Three Plays and a Plaything (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1933) [plays: coll: contains Posterity above plus other plays: hb/]
- Number 10 Downing Street: A Political Play (London: National News-Letter, 1948) [play: pb/]
links
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