Barrie Keeffe's plays are alive with the music, the violence, the talk, the passions, and the pursuits of the life he has known since his birth in East Ham, London, in 1945. Since the production of Only a Game in 1973, Keeffe, the only son of Edward Thomas Keeffe, a post office employee, and Constance Marsh Keeffe, a Women's Voluntary Service worker, has risen steadily in professional stature. In 1977, the television adaptation of his play Scribes won the Thames Television Award; in 1978, Keeffe won the French Theatre Critics Prix Revelation for Gotcha; and his 1980 radio play Heaven Scent won the Giles Cooper Award.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Keeffe did not attend a university to gain training as a writer. After leaving grammar school he held a variety of odd jobs, some of which, such as work in journalism, provided material for his plays. He did not give up regular...