Playwright Peter Shaffer, the Oscar-winning author of Amadeus, the portrait of Mozart, is to become a knight.

His work, a mix of both philosophical drama and satirical comedy, has won him a string of awards, including eight Oscars and three nominations for Amadeus.

His tale of the wrangling, both professional and personal, between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and court composer Antonio Salieri, began as a stage play.

He portrays Salieri as being determined to destroy his rival, after hearing the "voice of God" coming from an "obscene child".

The stage play won the Evening Standard Drama Award and the Theatre Critics Award for the London production when it came out in 1979.

Twin brother

It then moved to Broadway, where it won the 1981 Tony Award for best play, and it ran for more than 1,000 performances.

Shaffer was born in Liverpool, England, on May 15, 1962, with a twin brother, Anthony, who also become an acclaimed writer.

Shaffer studied history on a scholarship from Cambridge University, but did not go into drama straight away, working as a coal miner, bookstore clerk, and assistant at the New York Public Library first.

His first play, The Salt Land, was well received after being shown by the BBC in 1954.

Further awards

Shaffer consolidated his reputation as a playwright in 1958 with the production of Five Finger Exercise.

The play opened in London under the direction of John Gielgud and won the Evening Standard Drama Award.

When it switched to New York in 1959, it was equally well received, winning the Drama Critics Award.

His other works include The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), which depicts Spain's conquest of Peru, and Black Comedy (1965), which pokes fun at a group of characters feeling their way around a pitch black room - although the stage is actually flooded with light.

Further acclaim came in 1973, when his play Equus won a Tony Award for Best Play as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

It takes the audience into the mind of a 17-year-old stableboy who has plunged a spike into the eyes of six horses, and ran for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway.

Several of Shaffer's plays have been adapted to film including The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969), Equus (1977), and Amadeus (1984) which won eight Academy Awards including best picture.