After marrying and having her first two children, she and her husband moved to Wandsworth in South London, where she wrote radio plays, beginning an extraordinarily prolific writing career that produced over seventy plays and adaptations. Pam Gems is, without doubt, Britain's greatest woman dramatist, with only Agatha Christie having had more West End productions. Agatha Christie had ten plays presented in the West End, at a time when the economics of West End plays weren't as prohibitive as they later became. Pam Gems had six, arguably seven, West End plays. The first was DUSA FISH STAS and VI, at the Mayfair, presented by Michael Codron, followed by PIAF, at the Piccadilly, presented by the RSC, which also later produced CAMILLE at the Comedy, and THE BLUE ANGEL at the Globe. LOVING WOMEN was presented at the Arts Theatre, and MARLENE had a successful run at the Lyric. STANLEY, which played to full houses at the National Theatre, was offered a West-End transfer by three managements, but the company turned down these offers in favour of a transfer to the Circle in the Square, off-Broadway, in New York, where it ran for six months. One thing that especially fascinates in Pam Gems' writing is the prophetic element. She perceived, well in advance, the dangers facing the pampered and decadent West, which we now see unfolding. As Victor Hugo said: 'Adversity makes men and prosperity makes monsters. ' Her approach is always positive, however. Like the Beatles' song, all you need is love.
