Draft:Jehane Markham

• Comment: Can you find multiple reviews on any of her work in poetry, or as dramatist. RangersRus (talk) 18:29, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

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Jehane Markham (1949–2024) was an English poet, librettist and dramatist. She was a daughter of actor David Markham and writer Olive Dehn. She was the youngest child and had three sisters: Sonia Markham and actors Kika Markham and Petra Markham. She was married to the actor Roger Lloyd-Pack.

Early life

Jehane was born in 1949, the youngest of four sisters, Sonia Markham and actors Kika Markham and Petra Markham, near the village of Forest Row in East Sussex and grew up on a smallholding on the edge of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England. Her mother was the poet and children's author Olive Dehn, her father the actor David Markham. Until she was eight, she was home-schooled and then attended Burgess Hill boarding school in Hampstead, followed by Town and Country school in Swiss Cottage, and then Camden School for Girls, after which Jehane studied at Central School of Art.

Career

Jehane began her career writing for radio, stage and television. Her work for radio included adaptations of modern classics such as The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Frost in May by Antonia White, as well as original plays, Thanksgiving, More Cherry Cake, and Nina, which was a Play for Today on the BBC. Her plays with songs for fringe theatre included One White Day, The Birth of Pleasure and Hermes, working with the likes of Orlando Gough and Pete Letanka. She wrote the libretto for several fringe musicals and a children's opera for the Royal Opera House, On the Rim of the World. Her last community opera was performed at Leiston House in 1997 - she wrote the book and lyrics for The Six Swans, a musical adaptation of two fairy tales by The Brothers Grimm, for the Wonderful Beast Theatre Company, and Hermes which was staged by the Rosemary Branch theatre in 2006.

As a poet, she published five collections, the most recent Forty Poems (Dreams, Dances & Disappointments, 2022), and previously Thirty Poems (Rough Winds Productions, 2004), Twenty Poems (Rough Winds Productions, 1999), Ten Poems (Redstone Press, 1993), and The Captain's Death (Soul, 1974), as well as an audio collection My Mother Myself, with her mother the poet Olive Dehn (Rough Winds Productions, 2001).

Jehane performed as part of the Jehane Markham Trio which she formed in 2004 and which was active for ten years, with pianist Robin Phillips and double bassist Graeme Howell, later replaced by double bassist Jonny Gee, and sometimes joined by cellist Natalie Rozario. They made two albums, The London Series and Vladivostok to Moscow and performed at poetry venues and arts festivals in London and across the country. She was poet in residence at Camden New Journal.

Personal life

Jehane was married to the actor Roger Lloyd-Pack. They had three sons together, Sevan, Hartley and Louis, and six grandchildren. After the death of her husband in 2014, she and her sons Hartley and Louis made a collaborative album of words and music, Sixteen Sunsets.

Select publications

• The Captain's Death, Soul 1974 (ISBN 05033880X)
• Ten Poems, Redstone Press 1993
• Twenty Poems, Rough Winds Productions 1999 (ISBN 0-9536583-1-7)
• Thirty Poems, Rough Winds Productions 2004 (ISBN 0-9536583-6-8)
• Forty Poems, Dances, Dreams and Disappointments 2022 (ISBN 978-1399918787)

Audio

• My Mother Myself – audio tape of Jehane Markham and Olive Dehn reading their work, Rough Winds Productions, 2001 (ISBN 0-9536583-4-1)