| Daisy Pulls It Off |
Denise Deegan was born in 1950's London to a working-class family, writing her first play at the age of 7 for a school competition. She failed the Eleven-Plus exam, left school at the age of 15 and soon after trained in stage-management at the East 15 Acting School. Over the next thirteen years she worked in stage-management for many UK theatre companies, whilst also writing plays. The first of her plays to be performed professionally was The Project, in 1970, in London fringe theatre. In 1983, Daisy Pulls It Off, was directed by David Gilmore at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, and then transferred to the Globe/Gielgud Theatre in London's West End, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, where it ran for nearly three years. This success enabled Denise to write full-time, and she has since had several plays performed by UK theatre companies.