Michael Abbensetts

Michael John Abbensetts (8 June 1938 – 24 November 2016) was a Guyana-born British writer who settled in England in the 1960s. He had been described as "the best Black playwright to emerge from his generation, and as having given "Caribbeans a real voice in Britain". He was the first black British playwright commissioned to write a television drama series — Empire Road, which the BBC aired from 1978 to 1979.

Born in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), the son of Neville John (a doctor) and Elaine Abbensetts, Michael Abbensetts attended Queen's College from 1952 to 1956, then Stanstead College, Quebec, Canada, and Sir George Williams University, in Montreal (1960–61), before moving to England "around 1963". He became a British citizen in 1974.

Abbensetts began his writing career with short stories, but decided to turn to playwriting after seeing a performance of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. Abbensetts was further inspired when he went to England and visited the Royal Court Theatre, Britain's premier theatre of new writing, where he was soon to become resident dramatist. Sweet Talk, Abbensetts' first play, was performed there in 1973, with a cast including Mona Hammond and Don Warrington, directed by Stephen Frears.

In the same year, The Museum Attendant, his first television play, was broadcast on BBC2. Directed by Stephen Frears, the drama was, Abbensetts said, based on his own early experiences as a security guard at the Tower of London. Black Christmas, also directed by Frears, was broadcast by BBC Television in 1977 and featured Carmen Munroe and Norman Beaton. It has been called by Stephen Bourne "one of the best television dramas of the 1970s".

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