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Joan Littlewood outside Stratford’s Theatre Royal |
A pictorial history of St Joan’s theatre workshop
Joan Littlewood blazed an uncompromising trail in British theatre writes Illtyd Harrington
The Art of the Theatre workshop. Edited by Murray Melvin. Published by Oberon Books, £20.
A BLEAK November day in 1953 in Stratford, east London, heralded a momentous day in the theatrical and, yes, the literary history of London.
A clapped out lorry driven by a young dynamic Mancunian Gerry Raffles spluttered to a stop outside an almost derelict theatre, which in fact had been an old Victorian music hall, now known worldwide as the Theatre Royal.
Raffles, the partner of director Joan Littlewood secured a six-week lease on the place.
Theatre Workshop, formerly the Red Megaphones, with its meagre technical resources piled up in the back, had come from the north, where they had played in every available space from working mens’ clubs, church halls, and even the street, for the past 25 years.
Littlewood and her then husband, the folk singer Ewan McColl, had challenged unemployment fascism in the towns and were at the forefront of support for Republican Spain during 1936-39 civil war.
They continued to raise morale during World War II amongst war workers and went on to do the same in the nuclear bomb age.
Littlewood’s uncompromising left-wing views got her sidelined by her masters at the BBC but she remained undaunted. Songs, bold and defiant themes and startling novel theatrical techniques blazed a trail which was to shake the conventions of West End culture.
The day of sunlit drawing room plays, country houses and the monoglot working-class moronic servants was drawing to a rapid end.
Joan got the six-week lease extended and Stratford Theatre went on to become a pivotal venue in post-war drama, producing numerous working class, realistic, plays which went on to dominate the West End.
Murray Melvin – now the theatre’s archivist – has assembled this photographic collection, mainly taken by John Spinner, a medical researcher and the theatre’s honorary photographer and it records a “real” glorious revolution”.
Starved of cash, nothing stopped these “vagabonds and rogues”.
I remember vividly sitting in a frozen auditorium watching Harry H Corbett, later the star of Steptoe and Son, in a superb production of Shakepeare’s Richard II.
There were 30 of us shivering in that bleak winter of 1954, the theatre’s antediluvian anthracite boiler could only give heat out for one hour.
Richard Harris was one of the Irish labourers in a play set on a building site, a concrete mixer actually turned out the cement during the performance. Harris, a wild and exciting presence then was magnetic before Hollywood clawed him away.
Barabara Windsor, now running ‘The Old Vic’ in the BBC’s EastEnders, queued up to be auditioned by Littewood amongst many future TV stars.
Brendan Behan blew in like a storm across the Irish sea. The West End rushed to the East End to see The Quare Fellow and The Hostage. Littlewood tried valiantly to bring some order to this explosive, indisciplined genius and in the long run succeeded.
The plays transferred to the West End where Behan, that kind and generous Dubliner, once walked into a pub in St Martin’s Lane and shouted “The drinks are on me” and they were.
Her own creative triumph was Oh What A Lovely War a theatrical experience which defied all theatrical orthodoxies and traditions.
Veterans of World War I shouted out with deep emotion at this honest interpretation of the carnage of 1914 to 1918.
Nostalgia took second place. Her assured direction made it all too real and painful for them.
Richard Attenborough made it into a film but as star-studded as it was, it could not match the raw and shocking experience of watching it live.
Murray Melvin who was also one of her accomplished actors, in his selection of 50 photographs of Stratford productions, makes what is a record of individual and collective achievements.
Joan’s indomitable spirit shines through it all and also the strength of her love for Gerry Raffles, who died so tragically on a canal bank while on holiday in France in 1974.
Afterwards Newham Council named the square in front of Theatre Royal after him.
What is really needed is for the theatre to be brought back to the workers – as Joan envisaged. After all, it was their heritage from Shakespearean times.
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