John Diamond in the play A Lump in My Throat

Discuss the portrayal of the character of John Diamond in the play A

Lump in My Throat’As part of our English

As part of our English course work we have been looking at post 1914

drama. We have been studying the play a lump in my throat. As almost

all of the play was written by John Diamond himself we only get to see

the parts of him that he wants us to see.

John Diamond was diagnosed in 1997 with throat cancer. While it was a

life threatening condition he still tried to live his life as normally

as possible. He wrote a column weekly in the weekend ‘Times’ newspaper

called "Something for the Weekend” were he would discuss ‘everything

and anything’. An offshoot of the column was a book ‘C-Because Cowards

get Cancer Too’. This was the closely followed by another book’ Snake

Oil’ and he started to write the play ‘ A Lump In MY Throat’, which is

the story of the diagnosis and last years of his life.

In the opening of the play the original footage of Diamond is shown on

screen on stage illustrating his various appearances on television at

various times. He is seen in an interview where he is portrayed as a

very positive man and does not seen to he that affected by either the

cancer or the diagnosis. In his pre-cancerous state he is portrayed as

a very comical man, quick witted and clever and is obviously enjoying

his life. However as the play opens we learn that while he still had a

positive attitude towards life, he was still unsure of his future.

Diamond was born in East London, was the son of a biochemist and a

designer and was the youngest of three brothers. He was an English and

drama teacher before beginning his career in journalism. Diamond was

born into a Jewish family but did not practice the religion. He was

not very confident in himself as a teen so he took up smoking with his

friend to ‘pull the girls‘ he was soon addicted. Sadly this was the

start of all his problems.

John Diamond wrote about anything that came to his head in his weekly

column. In 1997 he started to write about the lump he had found in his

throat. Week after week the story would unwind and ‘the readers would

go on the journey’ with him. Hundreds wrote letters and he found it

touching, he did not think that people who read ’The Times’ would have

the time to send him letters and make homemade cards.

Diamonds humour is reflected in the play itself not only through joked