FAMED for his breathtakingly evocative novels, little is widely known of Laurie Lee the playwright.

Rodborough-based University of Gloucestershire professor of literature Peter Widdowson has been the driving force behind the publication of three forgotten plays by the Five Valleys' most famous literary son. David Gibbs reports.

"What we have got here is a demonstration of Laurie Lee's work that has fallen out of view completely," enthuses Prof Widdowson of Laurie Lee, Three Plays.

"Barely anybody knows anything about him as a playwright or knows anything about these plays."

The plays in question are the Peasants' Priest and two radio plays, Black Saturday, Red Sunday and I Call Me Adam.

The latter two have never been published and the former only as an acting copy. With the permission of Lee's widow Kathy the professor had them published by The Cyder Press, the university's printing press he founded to reprint long-out of print or little known works by the Dymock Poets or other writers with regional, literary or period connections.

"We all know that Laurie Lee is one of the great local if not national literary heroes and figures," says Prof Widdowson.

"By a series of extraordinary chances I got to hear there were these plays by him. In effect they haven't really been published before."

He describes Peasants' Priest as "quite a radical play". "It's about the peasants' revolt," he explains. "It's a verse drama that shows Laurie Lee as more left wing and radical.

"The characters are quite dramatic as is the interchange between John Balle and his jailers and the trickery and chicanery of the King and his court, which finally defeats the peasant revolt.

Black Saturday, Red Sunday, set in an Andalusian village during the Easter religious festival poetically evokes the scars left by the Spanish Civil War and life under General Franco.

It was inspired by Lee's return in 1956 to the country at the heart of his famed novel As I Walked Out One Summer's Morning.

"Again it has a political tinge to it. It is very evocative of Andalucia and peasant's life but it's a play for voices so you have to read it with that in mind," says Prof Widdowson. Also included in the collection is Lee's final play, I Call Me Adam based on the HMS Bounty mutineers' ill-fated settlement on Pitcairn Island. "It's a kind of allegorical piece about the fall from Eden," the professor says.

For Prof Widdowson it is hoped the book will lease new life into these little known works. To order a copy of Laurie Lee, Three Plays (ISBN 1861741375 £7.50) call Prof Widdowson on 01242 543484 or e-mail pwiddowson@glos.ac.uk