When David Edgar's Talking to Mars was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 27 October 1996, it brought the total of his performed works in all media to more than sixty, making him unquestionably the most prolific dramatist of the post-1960s generation in Great Britain. Even more remarkable, though, has been the consistency of the political engagement and formal experimentation that have characterized his work from its origins in small-scale agitprop to the massive undertakings such as Pentecost (1994) for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and Albert Speer (2000) for the National Theatré. In hindsight all this seems unsurprising, coming as it does from someone blessed with the insouciance to dramatize "The Life and Times of William Shakespeare" at the age of eleven and to direct an all-male Mother Courage while still at Oundle School.

David Edgar was born in Birmingham on 26 February 1948, the son of Barrie Edgar, a television producer...