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Dario Fo

Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his time he was "arguably the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre". Much of his dramatic work depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of "illegitimate" forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari (medieval strolling players) and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell'arte.

His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world, including in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yugoslavia. His work of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is peppered with criticisms of assassinations, corruption, organised crime, racism, Roman Catholic theology, and war. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he took to lampooning Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, while his targets of the 2010s included the banks amid the European sovereign-debt crisis. Also in the 2010s, he became the main ideologue of the Five Star Movement, the anti-establishment party led by Beppe Grillo, often referred to by its members as "the Master".

Fo's solo pièce célèbre, titled Mistero Buffo and performed across Europe, Asia, Canada and Latin America over a 30-year period, is recognised as one of the most controversial and popular spectacles in postwar European theatre and has been denounced by Cardinal Ugo Poletti, Cardinal Vicar for the Diocese of Rome, as "the most blasphemous show in the history of television". The title of the original English translation of ''Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! (Can't Pay? Won't Pay!'') has passed into the English language, and the play is described as capturing "something universal in actions and reactions of the working class".

His receipt of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature marked the "international acknowledgment of Fo as a major figure in twentieth-century world theatre". The Swedish Academy praised Fo as a writer "who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden". He owned and operated a theatre company. Fo was an atheist.

Early life and education
An eldest child, Fo was born at Leggiuno, Sangiano, in Lombardy's Province of Varese, near the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore. His younger brother Fulvio would become a theatre administrator, their younger sister Bianca Fo Garambois, a writer. Their mother, Pina Rota Fo, from a peasant background, wrote a book of reminiscences of the area between the wars, Il paese delle rane (Land of Frogs, 1978). Their father, Felice, was a station master for the Italian state railway, and the family frequently moved along the Swiss border when Felice was transferred to new postings. Felice, a socialist, was also an actor, appearing for an amateur theatre company in works by Ibsen among others. Fo learned storytelling from his maternal grandfather and Lombard fishers and glassblowers. Among the places in which Fo lived during his early years was Porto Valtravaglia, a glassblowing colony in which, it has been claimed, resided the highest percentage of insane people in Italy.

In 1942, Fo moved to Milan to study at the Academy Brera Academy. However, the Second World War intervened. At age 16, Fo was part of the last generation of soldiers drafted by the fascist army of Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiana. Years later, when questioned about his affiliation, Fo explained that he initially opted to adopt a low profile because his family was active in the anti-fascist Resistance. Fo secretly helped his father to smuggle refugees and Allied soldiers to Switzerland by disguising them as Lombard peasants. His father is also thought to have helped smuggle Jewish scientists to the safety of Switzerland. As the end of the war approached, Fo joined an anti-aircraft division of the navy, anticipating an immediate discharge due to a shortage of munitions. He was mistaken and was instead dispatched to a camp in Monza at which Benito Mussolini himself arrived. Fo soon deserted with the aid of false documents and wandered for a while before joining a parachute squadron. He then deserted this as well, prompting a further unsuccessful search for the Resistance movement during which he slept rough in the countryside.

After the war Fo returned to the Brera Academy, also taking up architectural studies at the Politecnico di Milano. He started a thesis on Roman architecture, but becoming disillusioned by the cheap impersonal work expected of architects after the war, he left his studies before his final examinations. He had a nervous breakdown; a doctor told him to spend time doing that which brought him joy. He began to paint and became involved in the piccoli teatri (small theatres) movement, in which he began to present improvised monologues.

He considered his artistic influences to include Beolco, Brecht, Chekhov, De Filippo, Gramsci, Mayakovsky, Molière, Shaw and Strehler.

1950s
In 1950, Fo asked to work with Franco Parenti on a variety show performed by radio actors, beginning a collaboration that would last until 1954. Fo delighted audiences with stories of his upbringing, which Parenti was very impressed by, describing them as "absolutely original, with an extraordinary humour, wit and personification. When the show was over we'd go for walks round the lake and he'd tell me more stories. In this way we originated a project in which we would work together on a new type of revue, one which didn't copy reality, but which involved people and took a stand."

In late 1951, after Fo had gained experience with Parenti, Italian national radio station RAI invited Fo to perform a solo Saturday evening comedy series Poer nano (Poor thing), airing after Parenti's Anacleto the Gas Man. Fo created 18 adult fairy tale monologues adapted from biblical and historical tales. The series also featured Shakespearean tales with various twists, such as a version of Hamlet in which the titular character kills his father to continue an affair with his mother; Ophelia is portrayed as Hamlet's uncle's trans mistress, while Horatio plays the ghost of Hamlet's father dressed up as a sheet and only appears when Hamlet is drunk. The series also featured an albino Othello and a sadistic Juliet who keeps Romeo in her garden with savage dogs. Scandalised authorities cancelled the show. Nevertheless, Fo performed it on stage at the Teatro Odeon in Milan in 1952, which allowed him to develop the gesture and action not required for radio. Also in 1952, Fo performed Cocoricò with Giustino Durano, which featured a 20-minute sketch focusing on the plight of black people in the United States.

In 1953, Fo—in collaboration with Parenti and Durano in their own revue company which they called I Dritti (The Stand-ups)—co-wrote, co-directed and designed the sets and costumes for a revue called Il dito nell'occhio (A finger in the eye). In these early years, Fo has been influenced by the Italian tradition of the actor-author, just like Ettore Petrolini. The title of his first revue referred to that of a column in the Italian Communist Party (PCI) newspaper l'Unità. Il dito nell'occhio consisted of 21 sketches similar in style to Poer nano but dealing instead with a satirical history of the world. The last performance, in which Fo played a supporting role, was a box-office success and went on tour after 113 performances at Milan's Piccolo Teatro. 1953 also brought the beginning of Fo's songwriting. He collaborated with Fiorenzo Carpi; all of Fo's plays as far as 1967 would feature Carpi's music. "La luna è una lampadina" ("The moon is a lightbulb"), their first song, is one of Fo's most famous.

Fo met Franca Rame, daughter of a theatrical family, when they were working in the revue Sette giorni a Milano. They became engaged, and married on 24 June 1954. They had a son, Jacopo (born 31 March 1955), who would also become a writer.

With the break-up of I dritti due to financial failure, Fo and family moved to Rome where he hoped to gain work as a screenwriter in the cinema. There they lived next door to Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. Fo worked on many productions, including those of Dino De Laurentiis. Rame worked in Teatro Stabile of Bolzano. In 1956, Fo co-wrote and acted with Rame in the Carlo Lizzani's film Lo svitato (The screwball), influenced by Jacques Tati, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. In the film, Fo plays "a disoriented hotel porter cast adrift in a neo-capitalist Milan of skyscrapers and modern technology". Other films followed.

In 1958, the couple returned to Milan when Rame was offered roles in a series of farces at the Arlecchino Theatre. Fo and Rame were subsequently based there. Fo said, "For me the lesson of the cinema meant learning from a technical point of view what audiences had already grasped: a story divided into sequences, a fast pace, sharp dialogue, and getting rid of the conventions of space and time. Working on screenplays gave me an apprenticeship as a playwright and I was able to transfer the lessons of the new technical means to the theatre".

The foundation of the Compagnia Fo-Rame dates from this time. Fo wrote scripts, acted, directed, and designed costumes and stage paraphernalia. Rame took care of the administration. The company débuted at the Piccolo Teatro, and in 1959 began a series of six full-length plays that were performed each season at the Teatro Odeon. One of these, Gli arcangeli non giocano al flipper (Archangels Don't Play Pinball), brought Fo and Rame national and, later, international recognition. It would be the first Fo play to be performed outside Italy—in Yugoslavia, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain. Other successes would follow.

1960s
In 1962, Fo wrote and directed a variety show, Canzonissima, for RAI. Fo used the show to give Italians a glimpse of a type of television resembling the origins of theatre, far removed from the "junk TV" previously produced by the company. Canzonissima featured satirical songs and sketches depicting the lives of the working classes. However, it was frequently censored. One sketch featured a fat aunt who came to visit her nephew at his workplace (a canned meat factory) only to fall into a machine and come out as mincemeat, which the nephew retained in a cupboard at home and often displayed to friends: this led to complaints from canned meat producers and "industrialists in general"—though none from aunts, Fo later observed. Nonetheless Canzonissima proved popular, attracting millions of viewers, and Rame maintained that taxi drivers in Italian cities would often say they had no work during broadcasts as everyone was watching it.

The show's eighth episode—which referenced the dangerous conditions faced by workers on building sites—led to a dispute with the programme's producers, and prompted Fo and Rame to walk out on 29 November 1962. RAI maintained it would not broadcast the sketch as it risked further inflaming the annoyance of building workers' unions at working conditions. National uproar ensued over this censorship, with headlines in the daily newspapers and questions in the Italian parliament. RAI sued Fo and Rame and destroyed all the Canzonissima recordings. The dispute led to the effective banning of Fo and Rame from Italian television for 14 years.

Fo returned to Milan's Teatro Odeon with the play Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe (Isabella, Three Sailing Ships and a Con Man), considered "an attempt to demystify and debunk the traditional history-book image" of Christopher Columbus. Fo said: "I wanted to attack those Italian intellectuals who, with the centre-left and the Socialist Party in the government, had discovered power and its advantages and leapt on it like rats on a piece of cheese. I wanted to dismantle a character who had been embalmed as a hero in school history books, whereas he is in fact an intellectual who tries to keep afloat within the mechanisms of power, play games with the King and be cunning with power figures, only to end up reduced to a wretch." Fo received threatening letters, was assaulted in Rome with Rame by fascist groups who also threw rubbish at them, while another performance was disrupted by a bomb scare. He later recounted this event in the prologue of Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas.

La signora è da buttare (Throw the Lady Out) was the final play Fo put on in the mainstream establishment Italian theatre. Performed in 1967, it contained topical references to the Vietnam War, Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The play prompted the first English-language piece of criticism on Fo's work by U.S. critic A. Richard Sogliuzzo in 1972. He interpreted the titular lady as "representing American capitalism [... and who just before her death] was elevated above a sink in a Statue of Liberty pose, and then ascended to a heaven packed with consumer goods". The U.S. government would later consistently deny Fo entry under the now-defunct McCarran-Walter Act.

Inspired by the events of May 1968 in France, Fo and Rame abandoned the official state theatre in Italy and set up Associazione Nuova Scena, a theatre collective operating outside the state structure. They asked the PCI for assistance and access to community centres and workers' clubs. In October 1968, they toured Fo's latest play Grande pantomima con bandiere e pupazzi piccoli e medi (Grand Pantomime with Flags and Small and Middle-sized Puppets), opening in Cesena. The play, which featured masks instead of characters—representing Capital, the Confederation of Industry, High Finance, the Church, the People, Rebels and Peasants—included a giant puppet representing fascism which gave birth to representatives of the Church, the Monarchy, the Army and Industrialism. L'operaio conosce 300 parole, il padrone 1,000: per questo lui è il padrone (The Worker Knows 300 Words, the Boss Knows 1000, That's Why He's the Boss), Legami pure che tanto io spacco tutto lo stesso (Chain Me Up and I'll Still Smash Everything) and Mistero Buffo (Comical Mystery Play), also date from this time. Though Fo himself had never been a Communist Party member, his open criticism of PCI methods and policies on the stage led to conflict with the Party.

1970s
In 1970, Fo and Rame began their third theatre group, Collettivo Teatrale "La Comune" with the musician Paolo Ciarchi and the administrator Nanni Ricordi. They based themselves at an abandoned workshop (capannone) in via Colletta in a working-class suburb of Milan for three years, converting it into a sort of community centre and producing plays based on improvisation about contemporary issues. One such play was Vorrei morire stasera se dovessi pensare che non è servito a niente (I'd Rather Die Tonight If I Had To Think It Had All Been In Vain). Inspired by the Black September, with the title derived from a Renata Viganò poem, thousands of people came to see it.

What followed was Morte accidentale di un anarchico (Accidental Death of an Anarchist), Fo's most internationally recognised play, described by the playwright as "a grotesque farce about a tragic farce". It opened in December 1970, Fo having written it after right-wing extremists and the Italian Secret Service carried out a "terrorist" attack on the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan in 1969. (See: Strategy of tension.) This farce subsequently toured Italy with ''Tutti uniti! Tutti insieme! Ma scusa, quello non è il padrone? (United We Stand! All Together Now! Oops, Isn't That the Boss?), considered by Rame to be Fo's best work apart from Morte accidentale and Mistero buffo''. Morte e resurezione di un pupazzo (Death and Resurrection of a Puppet) was an updated version of Grande pantomima. Fedayn, first performed in January 1972, it consists of a series of autobiographical accounts from Palestine.

In March 1973, five fascists, commissioned—according to some rumors—by high-ranking officials in Milan's Carabinieri, abducted Rame, held her at gunpoint and dumped her in a van. They raped her, beat her, burnt her with cigarettes, slashed her with razor blades and left her in a park. Fo and Rame continued to tour around Lombardy and Veneto throughout that year, despite a split in La Comune; the short piece Mamma Togni dates from this time.

In September 1973, after the suicide of Salvador Allende in Chile, Guerra di popolo in Cile (The People's War in Chile) was produced, and toured the country attracting great interest. This was particularly due to a part at the end that unnerved audiences, who thought a coup had been declared across Italy. According to Chiara Valentini, a member of the audience panicked during a performance in Turin and ate ten pages of what he thought might be compromising names, while in Merano a student broke the glass in an attempt to flee through a window. The actual police arrested Fo in Sassari in November 1973, leading to nationwide uproar when it emerged that under Italian law the police could not enter the theatre during the performance; the outcry served only to boost attendances at future performances.

In 1974, the company—which had now become Il Collettivo Teatrale "La Comune" diretto da Dario Fo—occupied and cleaned up an abandoned market building in Porta Vittoria (a working-class area of Milan) and dubbed it the Palazzina Liberty. Political enmities intervened however, and Milan's council tried to remove them by court order. The council was unsuccessful; the company was allowed to stay temporarily and set about developing facilities such as a library, conference centre, theatre and audiovisual workshops. They began performing with Porta e Belli contro il potere (Porta and Belli Against the Authorities), in which Fo read sonnets by the two titular 19th-century poets, described by him as "splendid texts, and when I recited them individually they worked marvellously, but not altogether in the same show."

Next came the farce, ''Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! (Can't Pay? Won't Pay!), documenting the autoriduzione'' (self-reduction) movement which had developed during the severe economic crisis Italy was experiencing, and in which people would take what they wished from markets, only paying for what they could afford. Regarded as Fo's best-known play internationally after Morte accidentale di un anarchico, it had been performed in 35 countries by 1990. The title ''Can't Pay? Won't Pay!'' has also passed into the English language.

To the backdrop of the June 1975 Italian elections, Fo wrote Il Fanfani rapito (Fanfani Kidnapped)—a reference to Amintore Fanfani. Also in June 1975, Fo, Rame and other members of the company went to China—Fo later used his recollections of the trip in the monologue La storia della tigre (The Tale of a Tiger), with which he toured around Italy in 1978.

The same year (1975) Fo was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the first time. He thought the idea absurd: "I have become famous for my aversion to figures of reverence and genuflections of any kind. This Nobel business is a real comedy. I can imagine the look on the faces of certain state officials, magistrates and politicians I know. They take great pains to shut me up and clap me in handcuffs, and the Swedes go and play a trick like this ... [Receiving the prize] would be like acting in one of my plays."

Fo next turned to Italy's growing drug problem, summing it up as follows: "Rich people consume and use drugs, while poor people are used and consumed by drugs." La marijuana della mamma è la più bella () features a character called Grandpa who mistakenly swallows LSD instead of aspirin and hallucinates a farcical tram journey in his wardrobe ending at a police station. Fiorenzo Carpi returned to collaborate with Fo on the play's music, the first time they had worked together since 1967.

Fo returned to television in 1977 after 14 years off the air, RAI's administration having been changed following the previous year's general election. Fo was, however, limited to Rai 2, the second channel, which had a more socialist and non-religious slant than the more conservative Rai 1. Two cycles of his plays were broadcast; for political reasons these did not include Morte accidentale di un anarchico, ''Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! or Il Fanfani rapito'' (although La Commune filmed them to have a permanent record of them). The Vatican still denounced Mistero buffo as "the most blasphemous show in the history of television". A new play for the TV series, Parliamo di donne (Let's Talk About Women), focused on topics such as abortion, sexism and the Holy Family.

A series of five monologues collectively titled Tutta casa, letto e chiesa (All House, Bed and Church) also first appeared in 1977, and were performed by Rame. The first, Il risveglio (Waking Up), featured a working-class mother talking to her baby (a doll). Una donna tutta sola (A Woman Alone) was about a housewife locked indoors by her husband who had to deal with a crying baby while fighting off the advances of his disabled, wheelchair-using, pornographic-film-obsessed brother, a man with a telescope, an obscene telephone caller and a former teacher who has fallen in love with her. La mamma fricchettona (Freak Mother) featured a mother taking shelter in a church confessional after leaving her family to pursue drugs and free love. The Same Old Story features a little girl with a doll who swears. The final monologue, Medea, based on an Italian version rather than the more famous Euripides version, had been performed in 35 countries by 1990.

1980s
In 1980, the United States authorities blocked Fo and Rame from performing at the country's Festival of Italian Theatre, an act which has been compared with the country's similar treatment of Bertolt Brecht, Charlie Chaplin and Gabriel García Márquez. In May that year, "An Evening Without Dario Fo and Franca Rame", held in New York, was attended by Arthur Miller, Bernard Malamud, Richard Foreman and Martin Scorsese. The event featured a reading in English of the first act of ''Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga!'' and a letter (read by Piero Sciotto) written by Fo and Rame. The American Theatre Critics Association sent a letter to the politician, Edmund Muskie. In December 1980, Fo was on stage in France for his own show untitled "Histoire du tigre et autres histoires" (Tiger Story & other stories).

In 1981, with La Commune having been evicted from the Palazzina Liberty, a second version of Tutta casa, letto e chiesa opened at the Teatro Odeon, the first time in 16 years that Fo and Rame performed there. Also that year (January) Clacson, trombette e pernacchi (Trumpets and Raspberries) was first performed at Milan's Cinema Cristallo, and was Fo's first new play since La marijuana della mamma è la più bella five years previously. 50,000 people saw it performed 34 times in Milan, and it had soon been produced in 15 other countries.

In 1983, Italian censors restricted Coppia aperta, quasi spalancata (The Open Couple) to audiences over the age of 18 when Rame included as a prologue her monologue The Rape (inspired by her own rape). Il candelaio (The Candlestickmaker), a monologue written by Fo in 1983, displayed Fo's increased interest in the English Elizabethan Theatre, and preceded Quasi per caso una donna: Elisabetta (Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman), which Fo and Rame began work on in late 1984.

In September 1983, the U.S. authorities again refused Fo and Rame permission to enter the nation, and, to Fo's bewilderment, accused them of "belonging to organisations supporting terrorist groups." At this time Fo was the foreign writer whose plays were most widely produced in the United States. Famed producer Joseph Papp sent a telegram in their behalf to U.S. President Ronald Reagan, himself a former actor, but to no avail. Fo and Rame began a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department, pledging any damages received to sacked workers and occupied workplaces, the disabled, families of prisoners and other favorite causes.

Fo called a press conference in Milan to explain the grave offence U.S. authorities had caused himself and his wife: "We are Italian citizens who are supposed to have committed the crime of aiding and abetting terrorists in Italy. The Italian judicial authorities, however have never charged us or even made inquiries [...] nor have they accused us of any support of terrorism: in any case our position on the subject is well known. Now the Americans arrive on the scene and decide that we support terrorists, which means either that the Italian judicial authorities aren't doing their job or that they are in complicity with us."

1985 brought Hellequin, Harlekin, Arlecchino—based on Harlequin. 1986 brought , in which bankrupt banker Francesca Bollini de Rill has herself kidnapped to divert from her imminent arrest—adapted as Abducting Diana in 1994 by Stephen Stenning for English audiences. Appointed Professor of Drama at the University of Rome, the seminars Fo conducted there included ones on; Harlequin and the commedia dell'arte.

The pre-Christmas 1987 performance of The First Miracle of the Infant Jesus on Italian television's variety-lottery show Fantastico led to further accusations of blasphemy from the Vatican; Fo portrayed the titular character deploying bolts of lightning to save other children from a bully. For the first time in 26 years, in April and May 1988, Fo and Rame collaborated on an original project, Transmissione forzata (Forced Transmission) on Italian television. Restricted to Rai 3, the series featured ironic songs about RAI censorship and Italian politicians, dancing girls and satirical news bulletins, a ballet on Palestine and a "weather report" on national rape statistics. Also in 1988, Fo returned to film acting for the first time since 1958, playing a retired professor in Musica per vecchi animali (Music for Old Animals).

In 1989, in solidarity with those affected by the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Fo updated La storia della tigre and wrote two monologues Lettera dalla Cina (Letter from China) and The Story of Qu. The same year, Fo also wrote Il ricercato (The Wanted Man), an unperformed play about the mafia, and Il Papa e la strega (The Pope and the Witch), which debuted in late October. The latter portrayed a Pope overcome both by a phobia of being attacked by children and by an attack of arthritis which leaves his arms raised in blessing, and who, acting upon the advice of a woman disguised as a nun and claiming to be a witch, swings from a chandelier and injects himself with heroin during his search for a cure, and avoids various assassination attempts involving a toy car, poisoned parrot and Brazilian nun. Critics praised its comic inventiveness and it won an award for being the play seen by most people in Italy that season.

1990s
Addressing themes such as AIDS, the Gulf War and genetic experiments, Fo wrote ''Zitti! Stiamo precipitando! (Hush! We're Falling!'') in summer 1990, and it debuted at Milan's Teatro Nuovo that November. The titular character of Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas, Fo's response to the 1992 quincentennial celebrations of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, is a Venetian fugitive who escapes from the Spanish Inquisition by joining the explorer and coloniser's fourth voyage. Forced to tend the animals on board, a storm casts him adrift in the ocean on the back of a pig until he reaches the coast and is rescued by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. A video recording of Fo's performance exists.

1993 brought an important anniversary of Carlo Goldoni; Fo, who was unimpressed, and, choosing instead to focus his attention on Angelo Beolco, planned a joint production between his company and Teatro dei Incamminati, a publicly funded company. However, with rehearsals well underway, a ministerial letter arrived to block the project's completion with "an obscure law forbidding co-productions between public and private companies."

Fo and Rame collaborated on the monologue Settimo: ruba un po' meno no. 2 (Seventh Commandment: Steal a Bit Less No. 2), inspired by the corruption scandals (Tangentopoli) which were rife in Italy during the 1990s. They later performed ''Mamma! I sanculotti! (Mummy! The Sans-culottes!''), set in the eighteenth century but also making references to the Tangentopoli, and featuring music again by Fiorenzo Carpi.

For the 1994 monologue ''Sesso? Grazie, tanto per gradire! (Sex? Thanks, Don't Mind If I Do!), Fo and Rame worked with their son Jacopo to produce a performance based on Jacopo's 1992 book Lo Zen e l'arte di scopare (Zen and the Art of Fucking''), featuring educational pieces on topics such as AIDS, contraception, sex education and sexual repression. Thus came Fo's first run-in with the new government of Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi's government banned Italians under the age of 18 from seeing it over fears, it said, that the play could "cause offence to the common decency which requires respect for spheres of decency, and provoke distress among adolescent spectators, with possible effects on their behaviour in relation to sex", thus defeating the original purpose of the performance. Much free publicity ensued, with the censorship issue being debated in the national parliament, teachers calling for it to be performed, and audiences and both Italian and foreign intellectuals signing a petition calling for the ban to be overturned.

On 17 July 1995, Fo had a stroke. He quickly recovered and was well again by his seventieth birthday on 24 March 1996. In summer 1996, he wrote Leonardo: The Flight, the Count and the Amours. Set in 1502, the titular character of the play was Leonardo da Vinci. In 1997, he wrote Il diavolo con le zinne (The Devil with Boobs). Described by Fo as "a Machiavellian comedy, a gigantic late sixteenth-century intrigue, with judges and devils, housekeepers possessed by devils, hermits, gendarmes, torturers and even a monkey", it featured an homage to Fiorenzo Carpi who had died earlier that year.

21st century
In 2001, Fo became Satrap of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique. In 2004, Forza Italia senator Marcello Dell'Utri, on trial at the time for money laundering, sued Fo over references to him in his latest play. Fo was disgusted: "I have been doing satire for 40 years. It is paradox. It is grotesque." The play, titled The Two-Headed Anomaly and first performed in 2003, also poked fun at the shortness of then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, had him strapped to a chair and given electric shock treatment and portrayed Vladimir Putin being shot dead by Chechen rebels while visiting Berlusconi's luxury villa in Sicily. The title refers to the subsequent transplanting of Putin's brain into Berlusconi's head, and the play was performed amid debate over Berlusconi's business and political interests and media censorship, with RAI having barred Italian satirists Sabina Guzzanti and Paolo Rossi from its television channels. Fo spoke of receiving threats from politicians if he performed it.

In 2005, Fo revealed plans to run for Mayor of Milan, the most economically important city in Italy, the following year. He said it was part of his ongoing fight to rid Milan of Berlusconi's political colleague Gabriele Albertini, the incumbent mayor. Ostracised by Italian television (both state—RAI having shunted his latest show off to a graveyard slot—and commercial—three quarters owned by Fo's long-time adversary Berlusconi), Fo instead elected to campaign on stage. Under the slogan "I am not a moderate", he opposed the centre-right administration's plans to demolish parts of the city centre and vowed to chase out those "money-grabbing bastards who have run this city for decades". Securing 23.4% of the vote in the primary election of centre-left The Union in January 2006, he was ultimately unsuccessful, finishing second to Milan's former police chief Bruno Ferrante.

Throughout the early 21st century until his death in 2016, Fo remained an active participant and campaigner on various political, social and cultural issues. He questioned the official accounts of the September 11 attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings in the film, Zero: An Investigation into 9/11. In 2008, he was among the signatories of an open letter to la Repubblica which called on the state to protect Roberto Saviano, whose life was under threat after exposing the clandestine activities of the Camorra in his 2006 book Gomorrah. Ahead of the 2013 Italian general election, Fo explained that the most recent targets of his satire included: "The banks mostly, and the big entrepreneurs. All those who hold the reins of 'the show within a show', i.e. those who – through the media, television and in other ways – make every effort to ensure that the people accept the conditions they find themselves in."

Death
On 13 October 2016 Fo died at the age of 90 due to a serious respiratory disease which had previously forced him to recover for 12 days in the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan.

List of works

 * 1958 – Un morto da vendere (Corpse for Sale)
 * 1958 – Non tutti i ladri vengono a nuocere (The Virtuous Burglar)
 * 1959 – Gli arcangeli non giocano al flipper (Archangels Don't Play Pinball)
 * 1960 – Aveva due pistole con gli occhi bianchi e neri (He Had Two Pistols with White and Black Eyes)
 * 1961 – Chi ruba un piede è fortunato in amore (He Who Steals a Foot is Lucky in Love)
 * 1963 – Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciballe (Isabella, Three Tall Ships, and a Con Man)
 * 1967 – La signora è da buttare (Throw the Lady Out)
 * 1968 – Grande pantomima con bandiere e pupazzi piccoli i medi (Grand Pantomime with Flags and Small and Middle-sized Puppets)
 * Later updated as Morte e resurezione di un pupazzo (Death and Resurrection of a Puppet)
 * 1969 – Mistero Buffo (Comical mystery)
 * 1969 – L'operaio conosce 300 parole, il padrone 1,000: per questo lui è il padrone (The Worker Knows 300 Words, the Boss Knows 1000, That's Why He's the Boss)
 * 1969 – Legame pure che tanto io spacco tutto lo stesso (Chain Me Up and I'll Still Smash Everything)
 * 1970 – Vorrei morire stasera se dovessi pensare che non è servito a niente (I'd Rather Die Tonight If I Had To Think It Had All Been In Vain)
 * 1970 – Morte accidentale di un anarchico (Accidental Death of an Anarchist)
 * 1971 – Tutti uniti! Tutti insieme! Ma scusa, quello non è il padrone? (United We Stand! All Together Now! Oops, Isn't That the Boss?)
 * 1972 – Fedayn
 * An Arab Woman Speaks (from Fedayn)
 * 1973 – Mamma Togni
 * 1973 – Guerra di popolo in Cile (The People's War in Chile)
 * 1974 – Porta e Belli contro il potere (Porta and Belli Against the Authorities)
 * 1974 – Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! (Can't Pay? Won't Pay!)
 * 1975 – Il Fanfani rapito (Fanfani Kidnapped)
 * 1976 – La marijuana della mamma è la più bella (Mother's Marijuana is the Best)
 * 1977 – Parliamo di donne (Let's Talk About Women)
 * 1977 – Tutta casa, letto e chiesa (All House, Bed and Church, series of five monologues)
 * Il risveglio (Waking Up)
 * Una donna tutta sola (A Woman Alone, title changed to Adult Orgasm Escapes from the Zoo for a 1983 performance)
 * La mamma fricchettona (Freak Mother)
 * The Same Old Story
 * Medea
 * 1977 – l’Uomo incinto (The pregnant man)
 * 1978 – La storia della tigre (The Tale of a Tiger)
 * 1981 – Clacson, trombette e pernacchi (Trumpets and Raspberries)
 * 1983 – Coppia aperta, quasi spalancata (The Open Couple)
 * Lo stupro (The Rape)
 * 1983 – Il candelaio (The Candlestickmaker)
 * 1984 – Quasi per caso una donna: Elisabetta (Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman)
 * 1985 – Manuale minimo dell'attore (The Tricks of the Trade, 1991)
 * 1985 – Hellequin, Harlekin, Arlecchino
 * 1986 – Abducting Francesca (adapted in English as Abducting Diana by Stephen Stenning, 1994)
 * 1987 – The First Miracle of the Infant Jesus
 * 1989 – Lettera dalla Cina (Letter from China)
 * 1989 – The Story of Qu
 * 1989 – Il ricercato (The Wanted Man, unperformed)
 * 1989 – Il Papa e la strega (The Pope and the Witch)
 * 1990 – Zitti! Stiamo precipitando! (Hush! We're Falling!)
 * 1992 – Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas
 * 1992 – Settimo: ruba un po' meno no. 2 (Seventh Commandment: Steal a Bit Less No. 2)
 * 1993 – Mamma! I sanculotti! (Mummy! The Sans-culottes!)
 * 1994 – Sesso? Grazie, tanto per gradire! (Sex? Thanks, Don't Mind If I Do!)
 * 1995 – Leonardo: The Flight, the Count and the Amours
 * 1997 – Il diavolo con le zinne (The Devil with Boobs)
 * 2003 – The Two-Headed Anomaly
 * 2009 – Francis the Holy Jester
 * 2014 - La Figlia del Papa (The Pope's Daughter) (prose novel)
 * 2015 - C'è un re pazzo in Danimarca (There's a mad king in Denmark)
 * 2016 - Razza di Zingaro (Gypsy Race)

Date unknown

 * Alice in Wonderless Land
 * Housepainters Have No Memories
 * La Marcolfa (Marcolfa, late 1950s?)
 * La fiocinina (The Eel Woman)
 * Fascismo 1922 (Fascism 1922)
 * Michele Lu Lanzone
 * Nadia Pasini
 * Il tumulto di Bologna (The Tumult of Bologna)
 * La parpaja topola (The Butterfly Mouse)
 * L'opera dello sghignazzo (The Opera of Guffaws)
 * La nascita del giullare (The Birth of the Jongleur)
 * One was Nude and One wore Tails

English translations

 * A number of Fo's plays have been translated into the English language, including Abducting Diana, and Francis the Holy Jester (Beautiful Books Limited, UK, 2009) by Mario Pirovano.
 * Fo, Dario: Francis, the Holy Jester, Beautiful Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1905636716. translated by Mario Pirovano.

Awards and honours

 * 1981: Sonning Prize from Copenhagen University
 * 1985: Premio Eduardo Award
 * 1986: Obie Award in New York (with Franca Rame)
 * 1987: Agro Dolce Prize
 * 1997: Nobel Prize in Literature
 * 2001: Honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
 * 2002: Order of Saint Agatha by the Republic of San Marino

title: Dario Fo


text:
Sunil Gavaskar

 Sunil Manohar Gavaskar (Marathi pronunciation: [suniːl ɡaːʋəskəɾ]; born 10 July 1949) is a former captain of the Indian national cricket team who represented India and Bombay from 1971 to 1987. Gavaskar is acknowledged as one of the greatest opening batsmen of all time.

Gavaskar was widely admired for his technique against fast bowling, with a particularly high average of 65.45 against the West Indies, who possessed a four-pronged fast bowling attack, widely regarded as the most vicious in Test history. However, most of Gavaskar's centuries against West Indies were against the team when their four-pronged attack were not playing together His captaincy of the Indian team, was considered as one of the first attacking ones, with Indian team winning the 1984 Asia Cup, and the World Championship of Cricket in 1985. At the same time, there were multiple exchanges of captaincy between Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, with one coming just six months before Kapil led India to victory at the 1983 Cricket World Cup. He is also a former Sheriff of Mumbai.

Gavaskar is a recipient of the Indian sports honour of the Arjuna Award and the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan. He was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2012, he was awarded the C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honour BCCI can bestow on a former player.

Domestic debut
Born in Mumbai in a middle class Marathi Family and a student of St Xavier's High School young Sunil Gavaskar was named India's Best Schoolboy Cricketer of the year in 1966 while playing for his school. He scored 246*, 222 and 85 in school cricket in his final year of secondary education before striking a century against the touring London schoolboys. He made his first-class debut for Vazir Sultan Colts XI against an XI from Dungarpur in 1966–67 but remained in Bombay's Ranji Trophy squad for the next two years without playing a match. An alumnus of Bombay's St. Xavier's College, he made his debut in the 1968–69 season against Karnataka but made a duck and was the subject of derisive claims that his selection was due to the presence of his uncle Madhav Mantri, a former Indian Test wicket keeper on Bombay's selection committee. He responded with 114 against Rajasthan in his second match and two other consecutive centuries saw him being selected in the 1970–71 Indian team to tour the West Indies.

First test match win in West Indies
After missing the first Test due to nail infection, Gavaskar scored 65 and 67 not out in the second Test in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, hitting the winning runs which gave India its first-ever win over the West Indies.

First Test century and first series victory over West Indies
He followed this with his first century, 116 and 64* in the third Test in Georgetown, Guyana, and 1 and 117* in the Fourth Test in Bridgetown, Barbados. He returned to Trinidad for the fifth Test and scored 124 and 220 to help India to its first ever series victory over the West Indies, and the only one until 2006. His performance in the Test made him the second player after Doug Walters to score a century and double century in the same match and remains the only Indian until date to achieve this feat. He also became the first Indian to make four centuries in one Test series, the second Indian after Vijay Hazare to score two centuries in the same Test, and the third after Hazare and Polly Umrigar to score centuries in three consecutive innings. He was the first Indian to aggregate more than 700 runs in a series and until date remains the only Indian to do so. This 774 runs at 154.80 also remains the most runs scored in a debut series by any batsman. Trinidad Calypso singer Lord Relator (Willard Harris) wrote a song in Gavaskar's honour, the "Gavaskar Calypso".

England tour
Gavaskar's arrival in England in 1971 for a three-Test series generated substantial publicity in light of his debut series. He was unable to maintain his performance, making only two half-centuries. He was involved in controversy when taking a quick single from the bowling of John Snow. They collided, and Gavaskar fell over. Snow was charged with deliberately barging into Gavaskar and was suspended. Gavaskar's 144 runs at the low average of 24, led some to question Gavaskar's worthiness for international cricket.

England tour of India
In 1972–73, England toured India for a five-Test series, Gavaskar's first on home soil. He was ineffective in the first three Tests, accumulating only sixty runs in five innings as India took a 2–1 lead. He scored some runs in the final two Tests which India drew to complete consecutive series wins over England. His first home series was largely disappointing, aggregating 224 runs at 24.89. His English critics were placated when India returned in 1974 and Gavaskar scored 101 and 58 in the second Test at Old Trafford. He managed 227 runs at 37.83 as India were whitewashed 3–0.

West Indies tour
Gavaskar's 1974–75 series against the West Indies was interrupted, playing in only the First and fifth and final Test of the series against the West Indies. He scored 108 runs at 27, with an 86 bowled by Lance Gibbs at Bombay's Wankhede Stadium hosting the first test on this ground, the closest the Indian public got to see a century. The Test was the start of a world record streak of 106 Test appearances.

The 1975–76 season saw three and four Test tours of New Zealand and the West Indies, respectively. Gavaskar led India in a Test for the first time in January 1976 against New Zealand during the First Test in Auckland when regular captain Bishen Singh Bedi was suffering from a leg injury. Standing in despite having scored only 703 runs at 28.12 since his debut series, Gavaskar rewarded the selectors with 116 and 35*. As a result, India secured an eight-wicket victory. He ended the series with 266 runs at 66.33. On the West Indian leg of the tour, Gavaskar scored consecutive centuries of 156 and 102 in the Second and Third Tests, both in Port of Spain, Trinidad. These were his third and fourth centuries at the grounds. In the Third Test, his 102 helped India post 4/406 to set a world record for the highest winning fourth innings score. The Indians' mastery of the Caribbean spinners on a turning track reportedly led West Indian captain Clive Lloyd to vow that he would rely on pace alone in future Tests. Gavaskar totalled 390 runs at 55.71 for the series.

First home test century
Gavaskar was not to score a century on home soil until November 1976. In an eight-Test season, three and five against New Zealand and England, respectively, Gavaskar scored centuries in the first and last Tests of the season. The first was 119 in front of his home crowd at the Wankhede Stadium, helping India to a victory. Gavaskar scored another half-century in the Second Test to end the series with 259 at 43.16. In the First Test against England at Delhi, he was mobbed upon becoming the first Indian to reach 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year. A steady series saw him finish with 394 runs at 39.4 with a century coming in the Fifth Test and two half-centuries.

Tour of Australia
In 1977–78 he toured Australia, scoring three consecutive Test centuries (113, 127, 118) in the second innings of the first three Tests at Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, respectively. India won the third but lost the earlier two. He finished the Five Test series with 450 runs at 50, failing twice as India lost the final Test and the series 3–2.

India Tour of Pakistan
1978–79 saw India tour Pakistan for the first series between the arch-rivals for 17 years. For the first time, Gavaskar faced Pakistani pace spearhead Imran Khan, who described him as "The most compact batsman I've bowled to." Gavaskar scored 89 in the First Test and 97 in the Second, which India drew and lost, respectively. Gavaskar saved his best for the Third Test in Karachi, scoring 111 and 137 in the Third, but was unable to prevent a defeat and series loss. His twin centuries made him the first Indian to score two centuries in one Test on two occasions, and saw him pass Umrigar as India's leading Test run-scorer. Gavaskar finished the series with 447 runs at 89.40.

Captaincy
Gavaskar was captain of the Indian team on several occasions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although his record is less than impressive. Often equipped with unpenetrative bowling attacks he tended to use conservative tactics which resulted in a large number of draws. During his tenure, Kapil Dev emerged as a leading pace bowler for the country. He captained India to nine victories and eight losses, but most of the games were drawn, 30.

First test series as a captain
His first series in charge was a West Indian visit to India for a six Test series. Gavaskar's several large centuries contrasted with several failures. His 205 in the First Test made him the first Indian to score a double century in India against the West Indies. He added a further 73 in the second innings of a high scoring draw. After failing to score in the Second Test, he scored 107 and 182 not out in the Third Test at Calcutta, another high scoring draw. This made him the first player in Test history to achieve centuries in both innings of a Test three times. He managed only 4 and 1 in the Fourth Test in Madras as India forced the only win of the series. He posted a fourth century for the series, scoring 120 in the Fifth Test at Delhi, becoming the first Indian to pass 4000 Test runs. He aggregated 732 runs at 91.50 for the series, securing India a 1–0 win in his first series as captain.

Stripped of the captaincy
Despite this, he was stripped of the captaincy when India toured England in 1979 for a four Test tour. The official reason given was that Srinivas Venkataraghavan was preferred due to his superior experience on English soil, but most observers believed that Gavaskar was punished because he was believed to be considering defecting to World Series Cricket. He started consistently, scoring four half-centuries in five innings of the first three Tests. It was in the Fourth Test at The Oval that he produced his finest innings on English soil. India was 1–0 down needed to reach a world record target of 438 to square the series. They reached 76/0 at stumps on the fourth day. Led by Gavaskar, India made steady progress to be 328/1 with 20 overs remaining on the final day with a record-breaking victory still possible. An Ian Botham led fightback saw Gavaskar removed, with India still needing 49 runs from 46 balls. With three balls left in the match, all four results were possible. India ended nine runs short with two wickets in hand when stumps were drawn. According to Sanjay Manjrekar, it was "Vintage Gavaskar, playing swing bowling to perfection, taking his time initially and then opening up. Nothing in the air, everything copybook." He ended the series with 542 runs at 77.42 and was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.

Restored to captaincy
Gavaskar was restored to the captaincy for the gruelling 1979–80 season, with six Test home series against both Australia and Pakistan. The first two Tests against Australia were high scoring draws where only 45 wickets fell, with India taking a first-innings lead in both after making scores over 400. India broke through for a 153-run win in the Third Test at Kanpur, where Gavaskar scored 76. He made 115 in the Fourth Test in Delhi, where India were unable to convert a 212-run first innings lead, resulting in a draw. After another stalemate in the Fifth Test, Gavaskar scored 123 in the Sixth Test, where Australia collapsed by an innings after India posted their fourth first innings in excess of 400 for the series. The series against Pakistan was similarly high scoring, with four draws, three of which did not reach the fourth innings. India won the Third and Fifth Tests in Bombay and Madras. At Madras, he made 166 in the first innings and was unbeaten on 29 when India brought up the winning runs. Having secured the series 2–0, Gavaskar was removed from the captaincy for the drawn Sixth Test. This occurred because Gavaskar had refused to tour the West Indies for another series immediately afterwards, asking for a rest. As a result, Gundappa Viswanath was appointed so that he could prepare his leadership skills for the tour. In the end the tour did not go ahead as the West Indian board were not interested in a team without Gavaskar. The season ended with a one-off Test against England in Bombay, which India lost. In the 13 Tests that season, he made 1027 runs at 51.35 with three centuries and four half-centuries. This ended a 14-month span in which Gavaskar played in 22 Tests and the 1979 Cricket World Cup. In that time, he scored 2301 Test runs including eight centuries.

Australian Tour
The 1980–81 season saw Gavaskar returned as captain for the Australasian tour, but it was to be the start of an unhappy reign for Gavaskar and India. He managed only 118 runs at 19.66 in the three Tests against Australia, but his impact in Australia was for a controversial incident. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, when Gavaskar was given out by the Australian umpire Rex Whitehead, he ordered his fellow opener Chetan Chauhan off the field. Instead of abandoning the match, the Indian manager, SK Durani persuaded Chauhan to return to the match which India went on to win by 59 runs as Australia collapsed to 83 in their second innings. India drew the series 1–1 but the following three-Test series in New Zealand was to signal the start of a barren run of 19 Tests under Gavaskar of which India were to win only one and lose five. India lost to New Zealand 1–0, with Gavaskar managing 126 runs at 25.2. He finished the Oceania tour with 244 runs at 22.18, with only two half-centuries, making little impact.

England in India
The 1981–82 Indian season saw a hard-fought 1–0 series win over England in six Tests. India took the First Test, before five consecutive draws resulted, four of which did not even reach the fourth innings. Gavaskar made 172 in the Second Test at Bangalore and reached a half-century on three further occasions to compile 500 runs at 62.5. India reciprocated England's visit in 1982 for a three-Test series, which was lost 1–0. Gavaskar made 74 runs at 24.66 but was unable to bat in the Third Test.

Sri Lanka Tour
The 1982–83 subcontinental season started well for Gavaskar on an individual note, as he made 155 in a one-off Test against Sri Lanka in Madras. It was the first Test between the two nations, with Sri Lankan having only recently been awarded Test status. Despite this, India were unable to finish off their novice opponents, the draw heralding a start of a winless summer. India played in twelve Tests, losing five and drawing seven. The first series was a six Test tour to Pakistan. India started well enough, drawing the First Test in Lahore, with Gavaskar scoring 83. Pakistan then defeated India in three consecutive matches. In the Third Test in Faisalabad, Gavaskar managed an unbeaten 127 in the second innings to force Pakistan into a run chase, but the other two losses were substantial, both by an innings. Despite holding on for draws in the last two Tests, Gavaskar was replaced by Kapil Dev as captain after the 3–0 loss. Despite his team's difficulties, Gavaskar remained productive with 434 runs at 47.18 with a century and three half centuries. Gavaskar went on to the West Indies for a five Test tour purely as a batsman, but could not reproduce the form that he had shown in the Caribbean in 1971 and 1976. He managed only 240 runs at 30, as India were crushed 2–0 by the world champions. Apart from an unbeaten 147 in the drawn Third Test in Georgetown, Guyana, his next best effort was 32.

The 1983–84 season started with a home series against Pakistan, with all three matches being drawn. Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 103 in the First Test in Bangalore, and made two further half centuries to total 264 runs at 66.

Overtaking Bradman's test record
The Pakistan series was followed by a six Test series against the touring West Indies at the height of their powers. The First Test was held in Kanpur and India were crushed by an innings. Gavaskar had his bat knocked out of his hand by a hostile delivery from Malcolm Marshall before being dismissed. In the Second Test in Delhi, Gavaskar delivered his riposte to Marshall, hooking him for a consecutive four and six to start his innings. Gavaskar, unwilling to be dictated to by the Caribbean pacemen, hooked the short-pitched barrage relentlessly, reaching his half century in 37 balls. He then went on to score 121, his 29th Test century in 94 balls in his 95th test match, equalling Don Bradman's world record. He also passed 8,000 Test runs in the innings, and was personally honoured by Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India at the ground. The match was drawn. Gavaskar's 90 in the Third Test at Ahmedabad saw him pass Geoff Boycott's Test world record of 8,114 career runs, but was insufficient to prevent another defeat. During the Fifth Test in the series, India were defeated by an innings at Calcutta to concede a 3–0 series lead. India had won only one of their 32 most recent Tests and none of their last 28. The crowd singled out Gavaskar, who had made a golden duck and 20. Angry spectators pelted objects onto the playing arena and clashed with police, before stoning the team bus. In the Sixth Test in Madras, he compiled his 30th Test century in his 99th test match, with an unbeaten 236 which was the highest Test score by an Indian. It was his 30th Test century and third double century against the West Indies, propelling him to overtake Donald Bradman's 29 test centuries record. He scored a total of 505 runs at an average of 50.50 for the series.

Failure to win for successive Tests
With India having failed to win for 29 successive Tests, Kapil was sacked as captain and Gavaskar resumed leadership at the start of the 1984–85 season. The two Test tour of Pakistan resulted in two further draws, with Gavaskar compiling 120 runs at 40. The First Test against England saw India break through for its first Test victory in 32 matches. It proved to be a false dawn, with England squaring the series 1–1 in Delhi before another controversial Third Test at Eden Gardens in Calcutta. The hostile crowd watched as India batted for over two days to reach 7/437 after 203 overs. Angry with the slow pace of India's innings, the crowd chanted "Gavaskar down! Gavaskar out!" blaming him for India' performance. The local police chief reportedly asked Gavaskar to declare to placate the angry crowd. When Gavaskar led his team onto the field, he was pelted with fruit.

Gavaskar vowed never to play at Eden Gardens again, and duly withdrew from the team for India's next fixture at the Bengali capital two years later, ending his record of 106 consecutive Tests. The match was drawn, but India conceded the series after losing the Fourth. The series ended 1–2, and with a poor display of 140 runs at 17.5, Gavaskar resigned, although he had already announced his intention to relinquish the leadership before the series. The change of captain improved the form of neither Gavaskar nor India as they toured Sri Lanka for a three-Test series. India were embarrassed 1–0 by the Test minnows at the time, with Gavaskar managing only 186 runs at 37.2.

International farewell
In 1985–86, India toured Australia. All three Tests were drawn. Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 166 in the First Test in Adelaide and 172 in the Third Test in Sydney, ending the series with 352 runs at 117.33. A three-Test tour of England saw him score only 185 runs at 30.83, which India won 2–0 despite his lack of production. In 1986–87, Gavaskar's final season in Test cricket, India faced a long season of eleven home Tests. Against an Australian team, Gavaskar made 90 in the second innings of the First Test in Madras (now Chennai), giving India a chance to reach the target of 348, which ended in a tie. He scored 103 in the Third Test to end the series with 205 runs at 51.66. The First Test against Sri Lanka in Kanpur saw Gavaskar's 34th and final Test century of 176. He scored 74 and 5 in the next two Tests as India won the three-match series 2–0. The five-Test series against arch enemies Pakistan was to be his last. Gavaskar scored 91 in the drawn First Test in Madras before withdrawing from the Second Test in Calcutta as he had promised. In the Fourth Test in Ahmedabad, Gavaskar's 63 made him the first batsman to pass 10,000 runs. With the teams locked 0–0 leading into the final Test in Bangalore, there was to be no fairytale. Gavaskar was dismissed for 96 in the second innings as India were bowled out to give Pakistan a 1–0 series win.

Gavaskar rounded out his international career with the 1987 Cricket World Cup. He scored 300 runs at an average of 50 at the tournament. Against New Zealand in the league phase he recorded his highest ODI score of 103*. The good form however did not continue into the semifinals where Phil Defreitas bowled him for 4 runs in his last international innings.

Style
Gavaskar was also a fine slip fielder and his safe catching in the slips helped him become the first Indian (excluding wicket-keepers) to take over a hundred catches in Test matches. In one ODI against Pakistan in Sharjah in 1985, he took four catches and helped India defend a small total of 125. Early in his Test career, when India rarely used pace bowlers, Gavaskar also opened the bowling for a short spell on occasions if only one pace bowler was playing, before a three-pronged spin attack took over. The only wicket claimed by him is that of Pakistani Zaheer Abbas in 1978–79.

While Gavaskar could not be described as an attacking batsman, he had the ability of keeping the scoreboard ticking with unique shots such as the "late flick". His focus of technical correctness over flair meant that his style of play was usually less suited to the shorter form of the game, at which he had less success. His infamous 36 not out in the 1975 World Cup, carrying his bat through the full 60 overs against England, led Indian supporters to storm the field and confront him for scoring so slowly when India needed nearly a run a ball to win; at the end of the game India had lost only three wickets but scored 200 runs less than England. Gavaskar almost went through his career without scoring a one-day century. He managed his first (and only) ODI century in the 1987 World Cup, when he hit 103 not out in 88 balls against New Zealand in his penultimate ODI innings at Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur.

Records and achievements

 * Gavaskar was the first Test cricket player to make over 10,000 runs.
 * He held the record for the highest number of test centuries (34) before Sachin Tendulkar went past him in 2005.
 * He has scored the highest runs (774) in a series as a debutant.
 * He has scored the most runs by any player in a series (774) against West Indies.
 * He has the maximum no. of runs & centuries scored by a player against West Indies—2,749 runs & 13 centuries.
 * He is the only cricketer to score 4 consecutive centuries at 2 venues — Port of Spain & Wankhede Stadium.
 * He is the only cricketer with Test century partnerships with 18 different players.
 * He is a joint holder of the record for scoring centuries in both innings of a Test Match on three occasions along with Australia's Ricky Ponting and David Warner.
 * He also became the first Indian fielder (excluding wicket-keepers) to get over a hundred catches in Test cricket.
 * He captained the national team on and off over a period between 1978 and 1985, which included a great 2–0 win over Pakistan in 1979–80.
 * He is the first Indian cricketer to carry his bat in test cricket, with a score of 127 not out in the Faisalabad Test in the year 1983.
 * He was named one of the Wisden cricketers of the year in 1980.

Important statistics
Sachin Tendulkar equalled Sunil Gavaskar's record of first class 100s on 8 February 2013
 * Test debut: West Indies v India at Port of Spain, 6–10 March 1971
 * Last Test: India v Pakistan at Bangalore, 13–17 March 1987
 * ODI debut: England v India at Leeds, 13 July 1974
 * Last ODI: India v England at Bombay, 5 November 1987
 * First-class span: 1966–1987
 * First Class Debut: Vazir Sultan Colt's XI v Dungarpur XI at Hyderabad, 1966–67
 * Last First Class Match: Rest of the World v M.C.C. at Lord's, 1987
 * Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1980
 * List A span: 1973–1988
 * Gavaskar's 100s in first class cricket.
 * Tests: 34,
 * Ranji Trophy: 20,
 * Irani Cup: 3,
 * Duleep Trophy: 6,
 * Rest of the World against England (his last first class game): 1,
 * County cricket for Somerset: 2,
 * Other games: 15.
 * Gavaskar was the first cricketer to play 100 consecutive test matches.

After playing career
After retirement, he has been a popular commentator both on TV and in print. In 1987, he participated in Prince Edward of the United Kingdom's charity television special The Grand Knockout Tournament. In 2003, he became the first Indian to deliver the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture. He also served as an advisor to the India national cricket team during the home series against Australia in 2004. He was the Chairman of the ICC cricket committee until the time he was forced to choose between commenting and being on the committee. He left the committee to continue his career as a broadcaster.

The inaugural Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Memorial Lecture was given by Gavaskar on 20 February 2013 at Taj Coromandel, Chennai.

On 28 March 2014 the Supreme Court of India appointed Gavaskar as the interim President of the BCCI, primarily to oversee the seventh Season of the Indian Premier League. At the same time the Court directed him to give up his job as a commentator.

Gavaskar joined Triton Solar as its Brand Ambassador.

Entertainment career
Gavaskar also tried his hand at acting on the silver screen. He played the lead role in the Marathi movie "Savli Premachi". The movie did not receive much appreciation though. needed After many years he appeared in a guest role in (1988) Hindi movie "Maalamaal". with Naseeruddin Shah and Satish Shah. He has sung a Marathi song "Ya Duniyemadhye Thambayaala Vel Konala" which was written by noted Marathi lyricist Shantaram Nandgaonkar. The song depicted the similarities between a cricket match and real life.

Honours

 * In 1980, Gavaskar received the Padma Bhushan award for his successful international cricket career, from President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy.
 * On 22 December 1994, Gavaskar was sworn in as Bombay Sheriff—an honorary post, for a year, at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai in the presence of Governor P C Alexander and Chief minister Sharad Pawar.
 * In 1996, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the bilateral test series between India and Australia was instituted in honour of him and Allan Border. Both these players scored more than 10,000 runs in their respective Test careers and captained their teams.
 * "Gavaskar Stadium" in his home district of Vengurla has been named after him.
 * In 2003, he became the first Indian cricketer to deliver the MCC Spirit Of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture. He was the 3rd lecturer in the history of the Cowdrey lecture.
 * On 21 November 2012, Gavaskar was conferred with BCCI's prestigious Col. C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award at the BCCI Annual Awards Function 2011–12. The Lifetime Achievement Award given to Gavaskar carried a citation, trophy and a cheque for inr 2500000 and he received this award from then BCCI president N. Srinivasan.
 * On 15 October 2017, Gavaskar inaugurated a cricket field in Louisville in the state of Kentucky in United States, thus making it the first international sporting facility named after an Indian sportsperson. The "Sunil M. Gavaskar Cricket Field", serves as the home ground for the Louisville Cricket Club, which is part of the 42-team MidWest Cricket League. Gavaskar was presented the keys of the ground by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer.

Written works
Gavaskar wrote four books on cricket, including his own autobiography
 * Sunny Days: An Autobiography, 1976
 * Idols, 1983
 * Runs 'n' Ruins, 1984
 * One Day Wonders, 1986

Controversies
On 25 March 2008, Malcolm Speed, ICC chief executive, told Gavaskar "very clearly", during a meeting between the two at Dubai, that he would have to quit his post at the ICC if he failed to give up his job of commentator and newspaper columnist, in which capacity he has frequently criticised his employers and levelled serious accusations of racism. He sparked a controversy in early 2008 for his comments on the contentious Sydney Test Match: "Millions of Indians want to know if it (match referee Mike Procter's verdict against Harbhajan Singh) was a 'white man' taking the 'white man's' word against that of the 'brown man'. Quite simply, if there was no audio evidence, nor did the officials hear anything, then the charge did not stand." Despite the fact that Gavaskar's comment referenced Mike Procter and not the ICC, Australian writer Gideon Haigh said that, if Gavaskar genuinely believed this, "then he should almost certainly resign, for if the ICC is a bastion of 'white man's justice', Gavaskar bears some of the blame for having failed to change it.

Personal life
Born in a Marathi speaking family to Meenal (née Mantri) & Manohar Gavaskar, Gavaskar is married to Marshneill Gavaskar (née Mehrotra), daughter of a leather industrialist from Kanpur. Their son, Rohan, born in Kanpur, was also a cricketer who played 11 One Day Internationals for India, but could not cement his spot in the team. Rohan was given the name "Rohan Jaivishwa" by his father as a tribute to his 3 favourite cricketers—Rohan Kanhai; M. L. Jaisimha; and Rohan's uncle, Gundappa Vishwanath —although his name is usually recorded as Rohan Sunil Gavaskar.

As per his autobiography, "Sunny Days", in his own version, Sunil Gavaskar stated that he was exchanged with a fisherman's baby at birth. It was his uncle who spotted that the child was not Sunil as he had a birthmark near his ear. "Perhaps, I would have grown up to be an obscure fisherman, toiling somewhere along the west coast," Gavaskar wrote.

His maternal uncle was retired Indian cricketer Madhav Mantri. His sister Kavita Viswanath is married to cricketer Gundappa Viswanath. His other sister—Nutan Gavaskar was the honorary general secretary of Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI).

According to a recollection by his son Rohan, Gavaskar saved a Muslim family from a violent mob during the 1993 Bombay riots. “We were standing on our terrace right after the bomb blasts, a few days later, when we saw a hate mob, and they had cornered a family. We knew they did not have any good intentions towards the family and dad saw that, ran down and confronted the hate mob. He told the mob, ‘whatever you are going to do that family, you are going to do to me first’, and then better sense prevailed and the family was allowed to go its way."

Gavaskar is an ardent devotee of Sathya Sai Baba.

In popular culture
The 2021 film 83 features Tahir Raj Bhasin as Gavaskar.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Sunil Gavaskar


text:
Dunbar

Dunbar is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately 30 mi east of Edinburgh and 30 mi from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ecclesiastical and civil parish. The parish extends around 7+3/4 mi east to west and is 3+1/2 mi deep at its greatest extent, or 11+1/4 sqmi, and contains the villages of West Barns, Belhaven, and East Barns (abandoned) and several hamlets and farms.

The town is served by Dunbar railway station with links to Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland, as well as London and stations along the north-east England corridor.

Dunbar has a harbour dating from 1574 and is home to the Dunbar Lifeboat Station, the second-oldest RNLI station in Scotland. The Dunbar Primary School and Dunbar Grammar School opened in the 1950s and 1960s.

Dunbar is the birthplace of the explorer, naturalist, and influential conservationist John Muir. The house in which Muir was born is located on the High Street, and has been converted into a museum. There is also a commemorative statue beside the town clock, and John Muir Country Park is located to the north-west of the town. The eastern section of the John Muir Way coastal path starts from the harbour. One of the two campuses to Dunbar Primary School: John Muir Campus, is named in his honour. A sculpture, The DunBear, the focal point of the DunBear Park mixed-use development, was erected as a tribute to John Muir and his role in the establishment of National Parks in the USA.

Etymology
In its present form, the name Dunbar is derived from its Gaelic equivalent (modern Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Barra), meaning "summit fort". That itself is probably a Gaelicisation of the Cumbric form din-bar, with the same meaning. This form seems to be attested as Dynbaer in the seventh-century Vita Sancti Wilfrithi.

Pre-history
Excavations in advance of a housing development by CFA Archaeology, in 2003, found the remains of a later Bronze Age/early Iron Age (800–540 BC) person, indicating that people were living in the area during that time.

To the north of the present High Street an area of open ground called Castle Park preserves almost exactly the hidden perimeter of an Iron Age promontory fort. The early settlement was a principal centre of the people known to the Romans as Votadini.

Early history
Dunbar was subsumed into Anglian Northumbria as that kingdom expanded in the 6th century and is believed to be synonymous with the Dynbaer of Eddius around 680, the first time that it appears in the written record.

The 2003 archaeological excavation also found a cemetery comprising 32 long-cist burials. Cemeteries of this type date from the early Christian period (AD 4th–8th centuries) and have been found in several areas around Dunbar, including to the east of Spott roundabout and at the Dunbar swimming pool indicated a settlement existed during this time.

The influential Northumbrian monk and scholar St Cuthbert, born around 630, was probably from around Dunbar: while still a boy, and employed as a shepherd, one night he had a vision of the soul of Saint Aidan being carried to heaven by angels and thereupon went to the monastery of Old Melrose and became a monk.

It was then a king's vill and prison to Bishop Wilfrid. As a royal holding of the kings of Northumbria, the economy centred on the collecting of food renders and the administration of the northern (now Scottish) portion of that kingdom. It was the base of a senior royal official, a reeve (later sheriff).

Scottish conquest
Danish and Norse attacks on southern Northumbria caused its power to falter and the northern portion became equally open to annexation by Scotland. Dunbar was burnt by Kenneth MacAlpin in the 9th century. Scottish control was consolidated in the next century and when Lothian was ceded to Malcolm II after the battle of Carham in 1018, Dunbar was finally an acknowledged part of Scotland.

Throughout these turbulent centuries Dunbar's status must have been preserved because it next features as part of a major land grant and settlement by Malcolm III in favour of the exiled earl Gospatric of Northumbria (to whom he may have been full cousin) during 1072. Malcolm needed to fill a power vacuum on his south-eastern flank; Gospatric required a base from which to plot the resumption of his Northumbrian holding. The grant included Dunbar and, it can be deduced, an extensive swath of East Lothian and Berwickshire or Merse (hence March). Gospatric founded the family of Dunbar. The head of the House of Dunbar filled the position of Earls of Dunbar and March until the 15th century.

Later history
The town became successively a baronial burgh and royal burgh (1370). Cultivated rabbit warrens on the links to the east and west of the town supplied food to the royal household. In 1589, storms and windblown sand destroyed the warren on the west links.

Major battles were fought nearby in 1296 and 1650. The latter was fought during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms between a Scottish Covenanter army and English Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell. The Scots were routed, leading to the overthrow of the monarchy and the occupation of Scotland.

A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Castle Park Barracks in 1855.

The local band, Dunbar Royal British Legion Pipe Band, which was founded in 1976, has competed with success in national competitions.

On 3 January 1987, a devastating fire destroyed much of the town's historic parish church: though the fire practically destroyed the monument and left only the outer walls remaining, the church has since been rebuilt with a modern interior.

Archaeology
During 2003, archaeological excavations at Oxwell Mains (Lafarge Cement Works) near Dunbar revealed the site of a Mesolithic house believed to be from around the 9th millennium BC. The site suggests a domed building. Although considered extremely rare and a site of national importance this site is in the middle of an area planned for quarrying.

An archaeological excavation undertaken by Headland Archaeology on a site previously occupied by the Captain's Cabin (a local landmark) within the area of Castle Park identified a sequence of archaeological features reflecting around 2,000 years of human activity.

The earliest feature was a large ditch which may have formed part of the defences around a promontory fort previously identified during earlier excavations near the coast at Castle Park. The scale of the ditches indicated an impressive monument. A radiocarbon date of between 50 BC and AD 70 was obtained from charcoal recovered from its infill.

Much later a rectangular building was built over the top of the infilled ditch. Large quantities of burnt grain were recovered indicating that the building was a grain store that had been destroyed by fire. It was established that this was part of the Anglian settlement that had also been identified during earlier excavations.

Between the 9th and 11th centuries the area was used as a cemetery. Archeologists excavated 76 articulated skeletons, and the disarticulated remains of a further 51 individuals were recovered. The articulated skeletons were all buried in the standard Christian fashion. A small number of the skeletons were in long cists, but the majority were simple shroud burials.

A dump or midden above the cemetery contained many elephant ivory off-cuts dating to the 18th or 19th century.

Climate
As with most of the British Isles, Dunbar has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) with cool summers and mild winters. It is one of the sunniest and driest places in Scotland, with around 1,450 hours of sunshine and 600 mm of rainfall annually. Temperature extremes range from 31.0 C in August 1990 to -12.0 C in January 1982.

Environment
Due to its geographical location, Dunbar receives less rain and more hours of direct sunshine per year than most places in Scotland.

Dunbar has two promenades, forming part of the John Muir Way. These provide an ideal viewpoint to see Dunbar's geological features including volcanic deposits and dykes seen from a high vantage point on the western clifftop promenade which passes the town's Public and Winterfield parks.

There are two local beaches, the smaller East Beach next to the town featuring rock pools and the expansive Belhaven Beach on the outskirts.

Lochend Woods are a community resource owned and managed by the Dunbar Community Woodland Group.

Economy
The town centre has several independent, locally owned retail businesses, including gift shops, salons, cafes, a community-owned bakery and grocer and fishmonger, traditional sweet shop, chocolatiere, florists, garden centre (located within Knox’s Newsagents) and pet shop. The town also has a zero waste shop as well as several vintage and antique stores and two charity shops. There are two RNLI stores reflecting the town's maritime connection. The High Street also features historic closes, two museums, and the "Backlands" garden and is a short walk to the scenic harbour area with its summertime food outlets. On the periphery of the town is a large garden centre with cafe, an Asda store accompanied by a drive-thru McDonald's built in late 2015, a restaurant and hotel owned by Marston's named the Pine Marten.

Local businesses are supported by the Dunbar Trades Association, now in its 75th year.

Tourists are attracted to the walking and cycling routes in the area with other long-distance routes, the John Muir Way and Coast & Castles routes. Dunbar has many hotels, B & Bs, a hostel, and campsites as well as short term lets. Adventure activities include surfing, wakeboarding, coasteering, kite surfing, stand up paddleboarding (SUP), boat and fishing tours, as well as orienteering activities run by the East Lothian Countryside Ranger Service. Dunbar has a large indoor pool, many sports facilities, tennis courts, bowling greens, and facilities for petanque and putting.

Agriculture remains important but fishing has declined, although the harbour is still active mainly landing shellfish. The main manufacturers are Tarmac, producing cement at Oxwell Mains (the only integrated cement plant in Scotland), and Belhaven Brewery, producing Scottish Ale.

Football
Dunbar is home to the football club Dunbar United, who play at New Countess Park and compete in the.

Dunbar is also home to the Dunbar United Colts Football Club, who play their home matches at Hallhill Sports Centre.

The town briefly had a senior club, Dunbar Town, immediately before the Second World War, which played in the East of Scotland League.

Golf
Dunbar Golf Club: Laid out in 1857 and redesigned by Old Tom Morris around 1894, Dunbar East Links is situated on the estuary of the Firth of Forth. It is used as an Open Championship Qualifying Venue when the Open is played at Muirfield and all of the major Scottish Championships have been played here, The Scottish Amateur, Scottish Professional Championships, and Scottish Boys' Championship. The British Ladies and the Ladies Home Internationals have also enjoyed Dunbar as a venue. Dunbar is also home to Winterfield Golf Club.

Rugby
Dunbar is also home to Dunbar RFC. They play their home games at Hallhill Sports Centre and operate a 1st XV, 2nd XV and various school teams. The 1st XV play in the East Region League Division 2.

Basketball
Dunbar Grammar School hosts basketball training for many school and club squads. School teams often participate in the Scottish Cup competition for their appropriate level. The school also hosts training for the club Dunbar Dragons.

Coastal Rowing
Dunbar Coastal Rowing Club has two St Ayles Skiffs - 'Volunteer' and 'Black Agnes'. They are frequently seen rowing off the coast towards Belhaven or Torness or even just fishing. In 2018 they rowed to all of the named islands in the Firth of Forth. In 2019 they are competing in the World Championships at Stranraer.

Wakeboarding
Foxlake in Dunbar was the first cable wakeboarding centre in Scotland. As well as wakeboarding it also offers a water assault course, ringo rides and segways. There is also a cafe in the centre.

Surfing and paddle boarding
Surfing is popular on Belhaven Bay. The Coast to Coast surf school is located next to Belhaven Bay. Paddle boarding is also popular on Belhaven Bay.

Education
The town itself is served by two primary schools, West Barns Primary School and Dunbar Primary School, and a non-denominational state secondary school, Dunbar Grammar School. Dunbar Grammar School also serves a wide catchment area which includes the surrounding areas and villages of East Linton, Stenton, and Oldhamstocks. There is also a small number of children who live in Cockburnspath that attend Dunbar Grammar. The school currently has a roll of 1,006 pupils. As of August 2024, John Johnstone is the Head Teacher, succeeding Claire Slowther. Prior to Slowther’s ascent to Head Teacher from Deputy Head Teacher in August 2018, the school was run by longstanding Head Teacher Paul Raffaelli. Dunbar Primary School is split between two campuses, the original building which is now referred to as "John Muir Campus" taking Primary 1–3s along with nursery pupils, with the newer-built "Lochend Campus" taking Primary 4–7s.

Youth facilities
Many youth groups use the facilities of The Bleachingfield Community Centre.

Presbytery of Dunbar
The town Dunbar was within the Church of Scotland presbytery of Dunbar.
 * Coldingham, Parish and Priory (notices of Cockburnspath, etc.), A. Thomson (1908).
 * The History of Dunbar. James Miller (1859).
 * An Old Kirk Chronicle. Peter Hately Waddell, D.D. (1893).
 * The Churches of St Baldred. Rev. A. I. Ritchie (1880).
 * Saint Mary's, Whitekirk. Rev. E. B. Rankin (1914).
 * History of Berwickshire Naturalists' Club (for Cockburnspath, Oldhamstocks, etc.)

Today, there are several churches in Dunbar. These are:

Church of Scotland

 * Dunbar Parish Church, Queens Road
 * Dunglass Parish Church, Kirk Bridge
 * Belhaven Parish Church, Belhaven Road

Episcopal and Methodist Church

 * St. Anne's Church, Westgate
 * Methodist Church, Victoria Street

Catholic Church

 * Our Lady of the Waves Church, Westgate

On film
Films which have shots of Dunbar include:
 * Lothian Landscape (1974) 21 min, colour. Narrated by Gordon Jackson
 * Dunbar (1958) 3 min, B&W, silent
 * Dunbar - The A1 Resort (1970) 20 min, colour, sound
 * Outlander - John Muir Country Park, filmed camp scenes (2020-2022)

Notable buildings

 * Chapel tower (with doocot conversion) of the Trinitarian Priory, Friarscroft, west of the town. Founded c. 1240 by Christiana de Brus, Countess of Dunbar.
 * Dunbar Castle, possibly from the 14th century, rebuilt and remodelled c.1490 and c.1520. Largely ruined with the aid of gunpowder (deliberately by Act of Parliament) in 1567 and with the whole north end removed with the aid of explosives (detonated using a specially-invented electrical system) for the new Victoria Harbour 1842–44.
 * Parish Church (see above) by James Gillespie Graham 1818–21 in local red sandstone from Bourhouse quarry.
 * Parish Church Hall (1910), located behind the post office off the High Street, contains stained glass removed from St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, redundant there on the creation of the Thistle Chapel.
 * Abbey Free Church (1850) by Thomas Hamilton.
 * St Anne's Episcopal Church (1889) by Robert Rowand Anderson.
 * Dunbar Methodist Church is the oldest Methodist Church in Scotland, having been erected in 1764. Both John Wesley and Charles Wesley were trustees of the Society in Dunbar and John preached at the Methodist Church on 21 occasions.
 * Dunbar Town House, High Street, (c.1550).
 * Mercat Cross (c.1911) created from medieval fragments to replace lost original sited opposite West Port. Now beside Town House.
 * Lauderdale House (1790–92), designed by Robert Adam and executed by his brother John after Robert's death; built round the carcass of Dunbar House (c.1730).
 * Railway station (1845) but altered.
 * Cromwell Harbour, very old fishing harbour which dates to 1600s.
 * Ordance Survey Tidal Gauge - Beneath the Castle Rock at Victoria Harbour is a small castellated building, now the Harbourmaster's office, but originally built in 1913 by the Ordnance Survey and used as part of a network that was used to establish the 'Mean Sea Level' that is used as the reference benchmark for all heights 'above sea level' in the UK.
 * Dunbar Battery (1781) was built to protect the town from privateers in the 18th century and restored in 2017 by Dunbar Harbour Trust with improvements made to access and a new outdoor amphitheatre sensitively inserted within the defensive walls. The Dunbar Battery also features "Sea Cubes", a public artwork by Scottish artist Donald Urquhart. The project won the Architects' Journal Architecture Awards 2017 for the Best Budget Project of the Year and was Commended in the Scottish Civic Trust My Places Awards 2018.

Pre 1000

 * Saint Wilfrid (633-709) - 7th to early 8th century English bishop and saint; imprisoned for a time in Dunbar
 * Saint Cuthbert (634-687) - early saint and evangelist of the Northumbrian church, Bishop of Lindisfarne, at a time when Northumbria was a leader in promoting and spreading the message of Christianity in a British and wider European context and, he was, according to some authors, born in and initially brought up in Dunbar to a local noble family, before being fostered in the Melrose area with a related or allied family as per the traditions of his class and time.

1001-1500

 * Black Agnes (1312-1369) - Countess of Dunbar and heroine of local folklore
 * Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots (1404-1445) - wife of King James I of Scotland, who served as the Regent of Scotland in the immediate aftermath of his death and during the minority of her son James II of Scotland, before being engulfed in a power struggle with members of the nobility. In desperation she took refuge in Dunbar Castle where she was subsequently besieged by her opponents, in which place and circumstances she died in the year 1445.
 * Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany (1454-1485) - second son of King James II of Scotland and Mary of Guelders, was Duke of Albany, Earl of March, Lord of Annandale and Isle of Man and the Warden of the Marches, which altogether gave him an impressive power base in the east and west borders, centred on Dunbar Castle which he owned and lived in. He attempted to seize control of Scotland from his brother King James III of Scotland, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
 * John Stewart, Duke of Albany (1482-1536) - de facto ruler of Scotland and important soldier, diplomat, and politician in a Scottish and continental European context, was the only son of the above Duke of Albany, and managed where his father had failed and became Regent of Scotland, while he also became Count of Auvergne and Lauraguais in France and, lastly, inherited from his father the position of Earl of March, which allowed him to likewise use Dunbar Castle as his centre of power in Scotland.

1501-1900

 * James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (1534-1578) - notorious third and last husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and owner of Dunbar Castle
 * Alexander Dow (1735-1779) - influential Orientalist, author and British East India Company army officer; resident and educated in Dunbar for part of his boyhood
 * Robert Wilson (1803-1882) - one of the inventors of the ship's propeller, born and bred in Dunbar from a local family
 * Sir Anthony Home (1826-1914) - British soldier who was notable as a recipient of the Victoria Cross and the eventual achievement of the rank of Surgeon-General of the British Armed Forces; born and bred in Dunbar from a local family
 * John Muir (1838-1914) - important conservationist, geologist, environmental philosopher, and pacifist; one of the founders of the United States system of National Parks and Sierra Club, born in Dunbar
 * Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman (1847-1937) - major shipowner and maverick Liberal politician, born in Dunbar to parents from Dunbar
 * General Sir Reginald Wingate (1861-1953) - 1st Baronet, army officer and colonial governor, 'the maker of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan', Governor-General of the Sudan (1899–1916), British High Commissioner in Egypt (1917–1919), commander of military operations in the Hedjaz (1916–1919), for many years the senior general of the British army, long-time resident in Dunbar
 * Jack Hobens (1880-1944) - Scottish-American professional golfer
 * Dr James Wyllie Gregor (1900-1980) - botanist, born in Dunbar

1901-present

 * William Alexander Bain (1905-1971) - pharmacologist
 * Sadie Aitken (1905-1985) - Scottish actor, theatre manager, film critic for BBC
 * Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) - renowned English historian who boarded at Belhaven Hill School
 * Davy Henderson (b. 1962) - Scottish musician (The Fire Engines, The Nectarine No. 9)
 * Maria Lyle (b. 2000) - para-sprinter, won medals at both the Commonwealth and Paralympic Games

Twin towns
Dunbar is twinned with
 * 🇫🇷 Lignières, France.
 * 🇺🇸 Martinez, California, United States.

title: Dunbar


text:
Brobdingnagian Bards

The Brobdingnagian Bards are a Celtic music group from Austin, Texas, United States.

History
Marc Gunn, formerly of Austin Texas' alternative rock bands Skander and Breastfed, released a solo album (Geography) featuring himself on autoharp and Andrew McKee on recorder in 1998. This initial collaboration lead to the official formation of the Brobdingnagian Bards in 1999.

The group's name is derived from Brobdingnag, the kingdom of coarse giants described in Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels. The band was made up of its original two members, Marc Gunn (autoharp, vocals), and Andrew McKee (recorder, mandolin, vocals).

The Brobdingnagian Bards musical style is best described as a mixture of Irish and Scottish folk music, with their original compositions often falling into the filk genre. Although the pair did perform a good deal of purely traditional songs, the band is most well known for their original works, including comedic pop-culture and sci-fi-themed parodies. Despite performing in a niche genre, this duo was ranked as one of the top 20 bands on the original MP3.com. Over time, the Bards also honed their act into live entertainment by adding comedy, with McKee being the "straight-man" to Gunn's antics. As a result, they also became a familiar and popular act on both the renaissance faire and geek-show circuits.

The Bards had the honor of being headliners at the Oscar party for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Both performers are from Austin, Texas, and have made regular appearances in the Austin Chronicle's annual Austin Music Awards poll; they earned the #1 prize for "Best Novelty Band" in 2004, "Best None of the Above" performing band in 2006 (the first Celtic band to ever win such accolades), and "Best Folk Act" in 2007. The band has also made regular top-ten finishes in the folk band and world music categories. In 2002, the Bards were also given a critic's pick award for "Best Renaissance Men" in the 2002 Best of Austin awards.

In addition to the many conventions, fairs and music festivals the group performed at around the Austin area, they also have toured coast to coast, and developed a following of devoted listeners, referred to as "Nagians." In 2007 and 2008, the Bards with several of their fans took a vacation tour of Ireland.

On September 15, 2008, the Brobdingnagian Bards band broke up amicably in order to pursue solo careers. They played one of their last public performances at The Browncoat Ball, organized by the Austin Browncoats.

The Bards reformed in 2012, performing at the Sherwood Celtic Music Festival near Austin and have continued to work together off and on since.

The Bards performed at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA in August 2013, 2016 and 2018.

Discography

 * Marked by Great Size (1999)
 * Gullible's Travels (2000)
 * Songs of the Muse (2001)
 * A Faire to Remember (2001)
 * Songs of Ireland (2002)
 * Memories of Middle Earth (2003)
 * A Celtic Renaissance Wedding (2004)
 * Brobdingnagian Fairy Tales (2005)
 * Christmas in Brobdingnag, Vol 1 (2005)
 * The Holy Grail of Irish Drinking Songs (2006)
 * LIVE: Nex Monoceroti, Per Risibus (2007)
 * Real Men Wear Kilts (2008)
 * Dragons and Virgins (2017)
 * I Will Not Sing Along (2020)
 * Another Faire to Remember, upcoming

See Marc Gunn for additional CDs.

title: Brobdingnagian Bards