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A Taste of Honey
A Taste of Honey was first staged in 1958 by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company, and is now established as a modern classic. This comic and poignant play written by a then nineteen-year-old working-class Lancashire girl was praised at its London premiere by Graham Greene as having "all the freshness of Mr Osborne's Look Back in Anger and a greater maturity."
The play is a coming-of-age story about Jo, a seventeen year old woman and her mother Helen, who may be alcoholic, and often neglects Jo in favour of her own romantic interests. Jo enters into a relationship with a black sailor who fails to keep his promise to return to her after going to sea. She is pregnant by him, and has largely negative feelings about being a mother. A friend, an implicitly gay art student who cares for her until her mother returns to the scene. The play examined questions of racism, poverty, gender, sexual orientation and mental disability. It was made into a highly acclaimed film in 1962.
The play is a coming-of-age story about Jo, a seventeen year old woman and her mother Helen, who may be alcoholic, and often neglects Jo in favour of her own romantic interests. Jo enters into a relationship with a black sailor who fails to keep his promise to return to her after going to sea. She is pregnant by him, and has largely negative feelings about being a mother. A friend, an implicitly gay art student who cares for her until her mother returns to the scene. The play examined questions of racism, poverty, gender, sexual orientation and mental disability. It was made into a highly acclaimed film in 1962.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Shelagh Delaney
14 books47 followersA British playwright, best known for her debut work, A Taste of Honey.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
August 13, 2014
Delaney wrote this little play, about a working class mother and daughter struggling in Manchester, when she was only 18. Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop developed and produced it in 1958.
It was a radical production because it starred two women. That Jo's nameless boyfriend (and therefore, to her mother's distress, her baby) is Black, that her kind and caring male friend is (implicitly) gay, and that her absent father's mental disability hangs troublingly over her must all have been highly provocative at the time.
I love this funny, painful play and other working-class dramas like those of Willy Russell in the English theatre tradition. The theatre has been a great place for the the British and Irish to shout back at oppression, ask questions, reveal their feelings and demand their rights. The tradition of radical theatre is still strong, growing and changing, and Delaney, like Littlewood is one of its brilliant pathmakers.
You can also watch the utterly wonderful film adaptation. I think the sound is fantastic, and the shooting style is classic in the best possible way. The National Theatre in London did a production this season, but I couldn't get an affordable ticket, which felt a bit ironic.
It was a radical production because it starred two women. That Jo's nameless boyfriend (and therefore, to her mother's distress, her baby) is Black, that her kind and caring male friend is (implicitly) gay, and that her absent father's mental disability hangs troublingly over her must all have been highly provocative at the time.
I love this funny, painful play and other working-class dramas like those of Willy Russell in the English theatre tradition. The theatre has been a great place for the the British and Irish to shout back at oppression, ask questions, reveal their feelings and demand their rights. The tradition of radical theatre is still strong, growing and changing, and Delaney, like Littlewood is one of its brilliant pathmakers.
You can also watch the utterly wonderful film adaptation. I think the sound is fantastic, and the shooting style is classic in the best possible way. The National Theatre in London did a production this season, but I couldn't get an affordable ticket, which felt a bit ironic.
August 15, 2024
A gorgeous, gritty kitchen sink drama. It’s the story of Jo, her black lover, gay best friend Geoffrey trying to navigate their lives in a lower class British tenement in the 1950s. There’s also Jo’s self absorbed mother, Helen and her younger lover Peter who round out the ensemble.
It’s such a thoughtful, honest slice of life story that should be revived on Broadway and a work of art that begs to be rediscovered.
It’s a marvel that Joan Plowright and Angela Lansbury originated the roles of Jo and Helen on Broadway, and that their ages in real life were awfully close.
It’s such a thoughtful, honest slice of life story that should be revived on Broadway and a work of art that begs to be rediscovered.
It’s a marvel that Joan Plowright and Angela Lansbury originated the roles of Jo and Helen on Broadway, and that their ages in real life were awfully close.
January 19, 2009
In this play, Delaney has sought to to speak for marginalised and unrepresented voices – those that are homosexual, teenagers, and single mothers. She rejects nostalgic Northern working class identities associated with strict gender roles in the gay man/straight woman relationship between Josephine and Geoffrey Ingham. She also rejects the stereotype of the witless and passive working class in the biting sarcastic duologues between Jo and her mother, Helen. Jo also present a cheerful willingness to be in charge of what Helen calls “the steering of wheel destiny" which opposes Orwell's view that the working classes are always acted upon. The play was written by a precocious Salford teenager and female playwrights were fairly absent from British theatre. Thankfully, it offered an alternative to the awfully misogynist play, Look Back in Anger by John Osborne. However, the play in my view has dated because the play despite its attempt to challenge prejudices still adopts stereotypes; the working class matriarch in Helen, the rootless ideal of black male sexuality in the 'black boy' who impregnates Jo, the 'harmless sissy' in Geoff, and the teenage single parent in Jo. So what is she trying to achieve? Is she cleverly presenting marginalised figures within 'normative' frameworks in order to legitimise them as they represent moral codes deemed threatening to working class identity. Despite this, I was saddened that the character of Geoffrey conforms to a stereotype of the 'effeminate gay', placed within an acceptable responsible role of parenthood and partnership with Jo. He is desexualised and unconnected to a gay community. Perhaps in the 50s society could only accept homosexuality within the confines of fidelity and partnerships.
October 18, 2025
Delaney was just 18 years old when she wrote this ground-breaking play about a working-class northern teenager. Jo has a rocky relationship with her neglectful single mother Helen (who’s introduced with the stage direction, “Enter Helen, a semi-whore”). When Helen heads off with her latest man, Jo gets pregnant and forges a kind of family with a young gay man.
Reading online about the context for and reception of Delaney’s work made it more meaningful. The library copy was a British one for GCSE students in the UK, describing it as a “popular classic,” whereas I don’t think it’s well-known here. I think it would be a bit of a tough sell today for teenage students because the historical context is key and it reads as dated. It would have been very modern indeed that Jo’s boyfriend is black and her roommate is gay, and in fact she was writing in part in reaction against the insensitivity to working class women and gay men in theatre at the time. But decades later some of the language is perhaps alienating to modern ears. Amazing achievement though and I’m eager to learn more about Delaney.
Reading online about the context for and reception of Delaney’s work made it more meaningful. The library copy was a British one for GCSE students in the UK, describing it as a “popular classic,” whereas I don’t think it’s well-known here. I think it would be a bit of a tough sell today for teenage students because the historical context is key and it reads as dated. It would have been very modern indeed that Jo’s boyfriend is black and her roommate is gay, and in fact she was writing in part in reaction against the insensitivity to working class women and gay men in theatre at the time. But decades later some of the language is perhaps alienating to modern ears. Amazing achievement though and I’m eager to learn more about Delaney.
March 15, 2011
This play has fantastic dialogue. I had to scramble for my pen constantly as I read it to write down great snarky one-liners (i.e. "The extent of my credulity always depends on the extent of my alcoholic intake"). "A Taste of Honey" was a favorite of that great effeminate Mancunian sad sack, the Moz. He lifted several song lyrics verbatim from the text in question.
The play, indeed, reads a little bit like the theatrical version of a Smiths album. That is, marginalized Northern working-class stiffs sulk about a run-down apartment and cry a lot. But the dialogue, people. The dialogue! The compassion and dignity Delaney heaps on the down-and-out without patronizing them! These are the elements that make this book a worthwhile read.
The play, indeed, reads a little bit like the theatrical version of a Smiths album. That is, marginalized Northern working-class stiffs sulk about a run-down apartment and cry a lot. But the dialogue, people. The dialogue! The compassion and dignity Delaney heaps on the down-and-out without patronizing them! These are the elements that make this book a worthwhile read.
March 22, 2023
I know, I know… It’s serious (At least she’s not in a coma?;)
Fantastic play.Delaney brilliantly depicts the so called “female experience” (I feel very cool using that word, btw). The mother-daughter relationship shattered my heart at times and I will be seeking therapy (or financial compensation)
Here are some of my favourite passages showing the phenomenal writing in this play:
“Boy: Women never have young minds. They are born three thousand years old“
“Jo: I know about that way, breast feeding, but I'm not having a little animal nibbling away at me, it's cannibalistic. Like being eaten alive.
GEOF: Stop trying to be inhuman. It doesn't suit you.
Jo: I mean it. I hate motherhood.”
“Jo: I wonder if we ever catch up with ourselves?
GEOF: I don't know.”
“Jo: we don’t ask for life, we have it thrust upon us.”
“Jo: you know, I used to try and hold my mother’s hands, but she always used to pull them away from me. So silly really. She has so much love for everyone else but none for me.
GEOF: If you don't watch it, you'll turn out exactly like her.
Jo: I'm not like her at all.
GEOF: In some ways you are already, you know.
[She pushes his hand away.]”
“Jo: I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to be a woman.”
“Helen: I never thought about you! It’s a funny thing. I never have done when I’ve been happy.“
Fantastic play.Delaney brilliantly depicts the so called “female experience” (I feel very cool using that word, btw). The mother-daughter relationship shattered my heart at times and I will be seeking therapy (or financial compensation)
Here are some of my favourite passages showing the phenomenal writing in this play:
“Boy: Women never have young minds. They are born three thousand years old“
“Jo: I know about that way, breast feeding, but I'm not having a little animal nibbling away at me, it's cannibalistic. Like being eaten alive.
GEOF: Stop trying to be inhuman. It doesn't suit you.
Jo: I mean it. I hate motherhood.”
“Jo: I wonder if we ever catch up with ourselves?
GEOF: I don't know.”
“Jo: we don’t ask for life, we have it thrust upon us.”
“Jo: you know, I used to try and hold my mother’s hands, but she always used to pull them away from me. So silly really. She has so much love for everyone else but none for me.
GEOF: If you don't watch it, you'll turn out exactly like her.
Jo: I'm not like her at all.
GEOF: In some ways you are already, you know.
[She pushes his hand away.]”
“Jo: I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to be a woman.”
“Helen: I never thought about you! It’s a funny thing. I never have done when I’ve been happy.“
October 28, 2025
The greatest of all the British "kitchen sink" dramas, and one of the few to explore the sensitive topic of mother-daughter relations, along with pregnancy, abortion, and inter-racial sex. Jo, the teenage heroine, has life thrust upon her all at once; mother's multiple marriages and divorces, a romance with a Black sailor ("Are your ancestors from Africa? No, Liverpool"), and homosexuality. Geoff, Jo's gay best friend: "Now you're being Irish!" Ms. Delaney was only 19 years old when she wrote this startling play.
February 5, 2016
I read this because Wikipedia said Delaney was on the cover of the "Girlfriend in a Coma" single and Morrisey claimed she was a big inspiration for him. I guess I can see how the characters' manners of speech reflect Moz's lyrical style, certainly it does moreso than Wilde, but the topic matter is a bit different. The drama wasn't really there but as a character study and work of realism it's a good first play.
March 22, 2018
I can’t believe this was first produced in 1958! It’s way ahead of its time: addressing women’s rights to their bodies as well as sexuality and race. Did I mention it’s written by a women? Why don’t we read this play in modern theatre history?
April 1, 2021
The dream has gone but the baby is real.
February 15, 2018
I just remembered that I'd read this (for a class) while shelving another book with the same title. I admit I don't remember my own reaction to the play terribly well, but what I do remember is that this was the text that made me realise how biased reading can be, because the gay character that to me seemed very out on page (there's a whole plot point about losing his lodgings after a landlord caught him with a man) was completely denialled and missed by some of my classmates.
July 5, 2022
this play let out of me all kinds of emotions!
June 14, 2017
SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
‘A Taste of Honey’ was not sweet. It swarmed with parched wit and rushed dialogue. Jo and Helen were not sympathetic characters and Geof and Peter were equally as bad in their own ways. The only character I liked was the father of Jo’s baby, who was ironically never given a name.
Act 1 Scene 1 – as an opening, this lacked dramatic impact. Jo and Helen didn’t give me the impression that they’d existed before their entry into the flat and they didn’t particularly exist while they were in it. Their hostility towards one another was weak, the way they both split sentences into dialogue and monologues was infuriating and their relationship was a cliché. The man-dependent-mother and the scathing-independent-daughter is a combination that can be successful but it has to be done with originality and it wasn’t done with anything close to that in ‘A Taste of Honey’.
Act 1 Scene 2 – according to the foreword, the four main parts in this scene were a deliberate attempt to explain Jo’s affection for her boyfriend by emphasising her mother’s negligence. While I can’t speak for Jo’s childhood, in the play she was almost eighteen and shouldn’t have been clinging to her mother’s skirts anyway. Perhaps that comes away as cruel on my part but I really didn’t like Jo. She was a self-absorbed, self-pitying character that happily trampled others’ feelings. No wonder her boyfriend didn’t come back (I went there).
Act 2 Scene 1 –Jo’s back – with guy number two. What can I say about Geof? He was an art student. He was also a kind-hearted pushover with a hankering for babies. Jo teased him mercilessly at the beginning of their relationship but it quickly grew into ingratitude and disrespect. He did everything for her – he even wanted to marry her, despite her being pregnant with another man’s baby. Not such a big deal now but then? Does he get recognition for that? Of course not.
Geof demonstrated the first sign of intelligence in the entire play by contacting Jo’s mother. He didn’t know Helen from Eve but his intentions were honourable. It made me grind my teeth to see him chewed out by mother and daughter when all he’d done was help. Then my outrage was kicked even further into overdrive by Peter’s drunken entrance. All of a sudden it became pick-on-Geof day tenfold and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more pity for a character.
Act 2 Scene 2 – Geof should have grown a backbone in this scene. Helen attempted to bully him out of the flat and he lets her shove him out the door! I won’t say much for the actual labour scene. I’m aware that this was set in the 1950s but the contemporary audience in me finds it revolting that Jo’s mother would consider abandoning her familial responsibilities because of the colour of her grandchild’s skin.
‘A Taste of Honey’ was not sweet. It swarmed with parched wit and rushed dialogue. Jo and Helen were not sympathetic characters and Geof and Peter were equally as bad in their own ways. The only character I liked was the father of Jo’s baby, who was ironically never given a name.
Act 1 Scene 1 – as an opening, this lacked dramatic impact. Jo and Helen didn’t give me the impression that they’d existed before their entry into the flat and they didn’t particularly exist while they were in it. Their hostility towards one another was weak, the way they both split sentences into dialogue and monologues was infuriating and their relationship was a cliché. The man-dependent-mother and the scathing-independent-daughter is a combination that can be successful but it has to be done with originality and it wasn’t done with anything close to that in ‘A Taste of Honey’.
Act 1 Scene 2 – according to the foreword, the four main parts in this scene were a deliberate attempt to explain Jo’s affection for her boyfriend by emphasising her mother’s negligence. While I can’t speak for Jo’s childhood, in the play she was almost eighteen and shouldn’t have been clinging to her mother’s skirts anyway. Perhaps that comes away as cruel on my part but I really didn’t like Jo. She was a self-absorbed, self-pitying character that happily trampled others’ feelings. No wonder her boyfriend didn’t come back (I went there).
Act 2 Scene 1 –Jo’s back – with guy number two. What can I say about Geof? He was an art student. He was also a kind-hearted pushover with a hankering for babies. Jo teased him mercilessly at the beginning of their relationship but it quickly grew into ingratitude and disrespect. He did everything for her – he even wanted to marry her, despite her being pregnant with another man’s baby. Not such a big deal now but then? Does he get recognition for that? Of course not.
Geof demonstrated the first sign of intelligence in the entire play by contacting Jo’s mother. He didn’t know Helen from Eve but his intentions were honourable. It made me grind my teeth to see him chewed out by mother and daughter when all he’d done was help. Then my outrage was kicked even further into overdrive by Peter’s drunken entrance. All of a sudden it became pick-on-Geof day tenfold and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more pity for a character.
Act 2 Scene 2 – Geof should have grown a backbone in this scene. Helen attempted to bully him out of the flat and he lets her shove him out the door! I won’t say much for the actual labour scene. I’m aware that this was set in the 1950s but the contemporary audience in me finds it revolting that Jo’s mother would consider abandoning her familial responsibilities because of the colour of her grandchild’s skin.
January 4, 2021
There is no ‘real’ plot as it stands, but it is a slice of life from the 1950s north of England that really captures the people and the times. Short and worth reading.
December 16, 2025
good as hell!!!! i really hope that there’s a question on whether the working class begins to dissolve post-ww2 on my final exam so i can talk about this wonderful play!!!!!!
March 3, 2017
If Morrissey and I were best friends, we'd spend our days scouring charity shops for shirts with interesting prints and quoting this play to each other.
Since that has yet to come to pass, I enjoyed it plenty on my own and the movie is one of my top faves.
Since that has yet to come to pass, I enjoyed it plenty on my own and the movie is one of my top faves.
October 13, 2009
Read this also at school as part of the curriculum and I thought it was great; we had to debate it's content afterwards and some good discussions arose from the book.
May 24, 2020
I dreamt about you last night. Fell out of bed twice.
July 20, 2019
I don't read plays, haven't done since school. Back then I didn't particularly enjoy it, as I'd rather either read a novel or see a performance, not be stuck in some grey area between the two. After reading this play, I can't say my opinion has changed a lot. I could appreciate the skill in telling a story mainly in dialogue with just a few stage directions to add context, but I really missed the emotion and depth that I know would be there in a performance. Because this is a story I would like to get more involved in. A loved the working class setting and the issues it brought up about life in that class in 1950's Britain, for a young woman and her neglectful mother. Dealing with issues like interracial relationships, unplanned pregnancy and poverty, written in the time it was set when Delaney was only 18, this was a bold and exciting work. But for me I just couldn't connect with the characters, and while some of the dialogue was seering and witty it didn't feel particularly natural. I don't always have to like a character, but I do have to feel something and often in this I just felt irritated by them. And when it's such a character-led piece, I struggled to enjoy it because of that.
December 13, 2017
I read this because it is a potential Literature GCSE text and I think I should know them all in my job. It's not on the paper I mark, but it's always worth knowing all potential texts.
I find it difficult to judge plays too much from just a reading - they are, after all, written to be viewed and not read. Nevertheless, this didn't do much for me. It's very dated and of it's time - and while perhaps it provides an interesting socio-historic perspective, the scandals that were possibly shocking to a contemporary audience, are not moderately shocking today. In fact the only shocking thing to a modern reader would be some of the language used to describe the black and homosexual characters.
Overall, not something I'd be interested in reading again - or watching - but not a complete waste of time to read.
I find it difficult to judge plays too much from just a reading - they are, after all, written to be viewed and not read. Nevertheless, this didn't do much for me. It's very dated and of it's time - and while perhaps it provides an interesting socio-historic perspective, the scandals that were possibly shocking to a contemporary audience, are not moderately shocking today. In fact the only shocking thing to a modern reader would be some of the language used to describe the black and homosexual characters.
Overall, not something I'd be interested in reading again - or watching - but not a complete waste of time to read.
February 26, 2015
Saw the movie, saw the play and now finally read the script.
Oh, and listened a million times to the songs it spawned. I had fun reading this and underlining all the lines that found their way into Morrissey lyrics.
Oh, and listened a million times to the songs it spawned. I had fun reading this and underlining all the lines that found their way into Morrissey lyrics.
June 7, 2015
"I'm not sorry and I'm not glad."
"I dreamt of you last night, and fell out of bed twice."
"Oh well, the dream's gone, but the baby's real enough."
"You need someone to love you while you look for someone to love."
"I dreamt of you last night, and fell out of bed twice."
"Oh well, the dream's gone, but the baby's real enough."
"You need someone to love you while you look for someone to love."
November 17, 2012
From BBC Radio 4 Extra - 4 Extra Debut.
A pregnant teenage girl and her feckless mother trade insults and repartee in 1950s Salford. Stars Siobhan Finneran.
A pregnant teenage girl and her feckless mother trade insults and repartee in 1950s Salford. Stars Siobhan Finneran.
June 8, 2024
“heaven must be a hell of a place. nothing but repentant sinners up there, isn't it? all the pimps, prostitutes and politicians in creation trying to cash in on eternity and their little tin god.”
read this for school because it's required reading, and i actually didn't hate it!
so i read this more focused on the analyzation than actually enjoying the story, for obvious reasons, but it was actually not a bad read. i love the way the author tackled controversial topics at the time, such as racism, gender roles and homophobia, and she was excellent at subverting the audiences expectations, which i'm sure was quite shocking at the time.
it was quite funny, in an english sort of way. helen and jo's banter seemed to tread the fine line between love and hate, and you kind of root for them to get along even though you know they're terrible for each other. the characters in general were very well fleshed out and i loved how the way we really got to know them was not through what they did, but from the way they interacted with other characters (does that make sense?)
also: the symbolism in this play was very very clever. jo's flower bulbs, the color black, the song helen sings early on in the play...it was kind of like the 1950s version of easter eggs. highly reccomend reading the commentary at the start of the book: it makes you more aware of a lot of things that would usually have flown under the radar. i love also, how the characters gets their proverbial 'taste of honey':
still it wasn't amazing so i'm not giving it 5 stars.
quotes, b/c i liked them:
>> 2.5 stars
read this for school because it's required reading, and i actually didn't hate it!
so i read this more focused on the analyzation than actually enjoying the story, for obvious reasons, but it was actually not a bad read. i love the way the author tackled controversial topics at the time, such as racism, gender roles and homophobia, and she was excellent at subverting the audiences expectations, which i'm sure was quite shocking at the time.
it was quite funny, in an english sort of way. helen and jo's banter seemed to tread the fine line between love and hate, and you kind of root for them to get along even though you know they're terrible for each other. the characters in general were very well fleshed out and i loved how the way we really got to know them was not through what they did, but from the way they interacted with other characters (does that make sense?)
also: the symbolism in this play was very very clever. jo's flower bulbs, the color black, the song helen sings early on in the play...it was kind of like the 1950s version of easter eggs. highly reccomend reading the commentary at the start of the book: it makes you more aware of a lot of things that would usually have flown under the radar. i love also, how the characters gets their proverbial 'taste of honey':
still it wasn't amazing so i'm not giving it 5 stars.
quotes, b/c i liked them:
“my usual self is a very unusual self.”
“i can't stand people who laugh at other people. they'd get a bigger laugh if they laughed at themselves.”
>> 2.5 stars
March 23, 2025
Está obra es de 1959, siento que los lectores actuales perdemos lo rompedor de los personajes y el tema a tratar. Pese a ello, sigue siendo una representación sencilla y rápida de una familia desestructura.
No me cambia como lectora, ni me deja con una gran reflexión pero es una lectura rápida, debe ser interesante verla representada.
No me cambia como lectora, ni me deja con una gran reflexión pero es una lectura rápida, debe ser interesante verla representada.
January 23, 2020
A pretty entertaining read, would defo like to see live.
March 27, 2025
I just may be daft or uneducated to understand this enough to enjoy it- we’ll see which one of the two it is on the next literature seminar I guess
January 14, 2024
It was alright, not my type of book kind of read like an Eastenders episode.
November 14, 2020
'Geof: I'd sooner be dead than away from you.
Jo: You say that as if you mean it.'
i was supposed to study this but it's been cut off the curriculum due to covid
Jo: You say that as if you mean it.'
i was supposed to study this but it's been cut off the curriculum due to covid
Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews