• University of Exeter home page
• Honorary Graduates home page
• Honorary Graduates 2007 home page
• Ceremonies
• Tuesday 10 July 2007 morning
• Tuesday 10 July 2007 afternoon
• Wednesday 11 July 2007 morning
• Wednesday 11 July 2007 afternoon
• Thursday 12 July 2007 morning
• Thursday 12 July 2007 afternoon
• Friday 13 July 2007 morning
• Friday 13 July 2007 afternoon
• Monday 16 July 2007 (Cornwall)
• Honorary Graduates 2007-08
• Professor Dame Carol Black
• Sir Richard Dearlove
• Ray Dillon
• Jonathan Dimbleby
• Adrian Edmondson
• David Eldridge
• Anthony Gibson
• Richard Hooper
• Dr Ekmeleddin Íhsanoğlu
• Yusuf Islam
• Kurt Jackson
• Sir Peter Job
• Michael Langrish
• Brian May
• Dr Beverley Naidoo
• Sir Robert Owen
• Michael Rosen
• Jennifer Saunders
• Posy Simmonds
• Sir Nicholas Stern
• Sir Clive Woodward
• Previous Honorary Graduates

Wednesday 11 July 2007 morning ceremony

David Eldrige
Beverley Naidoo
Michael Rosen

David Eldridge (DLitt)

David Eldridge began writing full time after graduating in English Literature and Drama from the University of Exeter in 1995. He is widely regarded as one of the most prominent playwriting voices of his generation. His full length plays include Serving It Up, A Week with Tony, Summer Begins, Falling, and Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness. Market Boy, which premiered in the Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre, was a critical and popular hit in June 2006 and the first new play on the National’s largest stage by a new young writer for 20 years.

He originally adapted the Dogme95 film Festen for the Almeida Theatre, London. The production then transferred to the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End and to The Music Box on Broadway. Most recently his new versions of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck and John Gabriel Borkman have both premiered at the Donmar Warehouse.

David Eldridge’s awards include the Time Out Live Award for Best New Play in the West End, for Under The Blue Sky, while Festen won the Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play.

He has also written for BBC radio and television and his adaptation of the Simon Garfield book Our Hidden Lives was broadcast to great acclaim as the centrepiece of the BBC 4 Lost Decade Season. Methuen Drama publish his plays.

Beverley Naidoo (DLitt)

Beverley Naidoo was born in South Africa. As a student at the University of Witwatersrand she joined the resistance to apartheid, leading to detention without trial and exile in England in 1965. After studying at the University of York, she taught in London before becoming an adviser for English and cultural diversity in Dorset until 1997.

Her award-winning novel Journey to Jo’burg opened a window onto apartheid for many children worldwide but it was banned in South Africa until 1991. She has continued to write award-winning fiction with strong characters and ‘thriller’ plots that challenge readers to think about politics, culture and identity. Chain of Fire, No Turning Back and Out of Bounds (with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu) are set in South Africa, while her London novels The Other Side of Truth (Carnegie Medal, Smarties Silver Medal, Jane Addams Award, Sankei Award) and Web of Lies retain a strong African link through her asylum-seeking characters. Her new novel Burn My Heart is about an English settler boy, a Kikuyu boy and the betrayal of a friendship during the end of empire in 1950s Kenya.

Her writing for younger children includes Baba’s Gift (with Maya Naidoo, illustrated by Karin Littlewood) and The Great Tug of War. Her play The Playground (in New South African Plays), directed by Olusola Oyeleye at Polka Theatre, London, was a Time Out Pick of the Year.

Beverley Naidoo researched teenage responses to literature and racism for her PhD (Southampton 1991) and a book Through Whose Eyes? Exploring racism: reader, text and context. She maintains a commitment to education alongside her creative work and has taught creative writing internationally, including in Africa and the Middle East.

Michael Rosen (DLitt)

Born in Pinner, Middlesex in 1946, Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen is a writer, broadcaster, poet and performer. His childhood in Pinner is the source of inspiration for many of his poems. Early experiences at nursery and primary school feature in a number of his books, including Quick Lets Get Out Of Here, You Wait Till I’m Older Than You, Uncle Billy Being Silly, Lunch Boxes Don’t Fly, and No Breathing In Class.

His interest in children’s learning could be said to be a family affair since his mother and father were both teachers and later university lecturers. Together they wrote a book called The Language of Primary School Children.

Following the completion of his A-levels at Watford Boys Grammar School, Michael Rosen thought that he wanted to be a doctor and enrolled at Middlesex Hospital Medical School. On arrival he quickly changed his mind and transferred to Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied English Language and Literature. Much of his time at University was spent doing theatre work. It was at this time that he wrote his first play, Backbone, which was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London. For the next three years (1969 – 1972) he worked at the BBC in radio drama, where he directed a few plays, then at Playschool in BBC Children’s TV, then in schools’ television. From there he went on to the National Film School in Beaconsfield for three years. During this time, he continued writing poems, acting in various theatre groups and doing a few broadcasts for BBC Schools Radio. In 1974 his first book of poems for children was published. From 1976 to this day, he has done a mix of writing, performing, teaching, lecturing and appearing on radio and TV.

He has studied for both a Masters and a PhD and was awarded the post of Children’s Laureate in June 2007, to run for two years.