Ranjit Bolt is one of the English-speaking world’s most famous playwrights and his work has often been translated into other tongues. His latest oevre is called A Knight with a Big Blue Balloon and More Irreverent Wordplay and is being released now, just in time for the festive season when young and old love things that are lighthearted and a little silly.
In his funny and engaging collection, Ranjit writes a 21st century update on the limerick tradition – a first. Limericks are an irreverent play on words and rhyme and playwright George Bernard Shaw successfully worked with them too. Ranjit’s adaptations include ones of Moliere, Chekhov, Zorilla y Moral and others.
Ranjit Bolt’s first success came when Jonathan Miller directed one of his plays. Ranjit received an OBE in 2003 and has worked with many star actors, including Judi Dench, Felicity Kendal, Derek Jacobi and Martin Clunes.
Bolt’s newest book is described by comedian Stephen Fry as full of “Rhythms and... delights" and is included in The Daily Telegraph’s books of the year.
Interspersed in this profile are examples of Bolt’s limericks from his newest book to give our readers a flavour of the work and to get you into a slightly zany mood.
A knight with a big blue balloon
Blew it up like you blow a bassoon
And it swelled and it swelled
And he yelled and he yelled
As it carried him up to the moon.
A man in a restaurant in Sicily
Was eating his dinner quite prissily.
This behaviour was due
To the wild boar ragù
Which was horribly salty and gristly.
In her penthouse, a lady performer
Was rehearsing a number from ‘Norma’
When she hit the top C
So indubitably
That it shattered the glass in the dormer.
Background
Ranjit was born in Manchester to a family of English teachers. His parents met in India during the war as they were both serving in the Indian army. The young Bolt grew up in Cambridge and now lives in Highgate London.
He read classics at Balliol, Oxford. His hobby was to write plays in verse at night and one day he turned it into his day job.
As a young boy Ranjit was inspired to go into the arts by his famous uncle, who was a playwright and a screenwriter. He remembers:
“One day mum came into our room and told us that he had a smash hit in the west end, and why didn’t we have a go at writing plays of our own. From that day I always wanted to write for a living.”
Ranjit is not a professional Asian; he has won acclaim by going straight into the highly competitive international world of theatre and does not feel that his own Indian heritage has influenced his works at all. He’s not a one- trick pony.
A litotic fellow from Chile
Used terms that were terribly silly:
He called Hitler ‘too bad’,
King Lear ‘frequently sad’,
And the Andes ‘in places quite hilly.’
There once was a fellow named Cronin
Who would never, not ever, stop moanin’.
He’d have soon ceased to moan
If he’d only have known
That he simply had low serotonin.
Biggest challenge
Bolt’s believes that the hardest task he had to do was to translate Sophocles’ Oedipus plays for the National Theatre. He admits: “As for overcoming it, I’m not sure I did. Certainly the critics were harsh, and I think they were basically right.”
An unfortunate fellow from Salop
Dined at Scott’s, where he ate a bad scallop,
And for days after that,
At the drop of a hat,
He’d be off to the loo at a gallop.
How he became a playwright
In 1992 Ranjit Bolt started to have anxiety attacks, which led to a mini breakdown. Psychotherapy helped too, but Ranjit believes it were limericks that helped most with morale. He told us, “It boosts one’s mood writing comic verse.”
Ranjit started with writing jokes wrapped in verse and wrote almost one limerick a day. This entertained his friends, aided the playwright in maintaining a humorous outlook on his condition and helped him regain his love for words.
he chief of the Wallakaleepee
Had become so incredibly sleepy
That the force of his snores
Almost shattered his jaws
And blew of the top of his teepee.
