WRITER David Halliwell will always be remembered for one play.

His partly autobiographical Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs was first produced in London in 1966.

It was a play, based in Huddersfield, that went around the world and won him the London Evening Standard award as the most promising playwright of the year.

There was talk of the Beatles starring in a screen adaptation and finally George Harrison's money was put into a rarely-seen 1974 film of the play.

Revivals have continued to this day.

Mr Halliwell, who has died at the age of 69, was born in Clifton, Brighouse, and educated at Hipperholme Grammar School and Huddersfield School of Art.

He left art school in 1959 to join RADA and was assistant stage manager at Nottingham Playhouse when he decided to write Little Malcolm.

The satirical comedy about personal and political power is based on an incident when Halliwell was expelled temporarily from Huddersfield Art School for splashing a bright green wash on what was to have been a pastel shade drawing.

Malcolm Scrawdyke - the Little Malcolm of the title - does not return, but instead sets up the Dynamic Erection Party, whose only policies are to achieve absolute power and exact revenge on the college principal for expelling him.

The play was initially directed by Mike Leigh at London's Unity Theatre and a later production at the Garrick Theatre starred John Hurt. Ewan McGregor made a return to the stage for a revival in 1998.

Halliwell was never able to repeat the play's impact, although he went on to write for film, television and radio.

He directed plays and spent a year as literary manager at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

Halliwell was unmarried and in later life lived near Oxford, where he became a town councillor.