The Theatre Workshop Story by Howard Goorney
Methuen, £10.99
IN NEW YORK these were dark days. They were chucking themselves off the Empire State Building to the reverberations of the Wall Street Crash. The financial world’s jugular had been badly slashed and was bleeding all the way across the Atlantic.
In the West End of London the Yanks weren’t fairing much better. Lead man Harry Fox had made the trip over for Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s adaptation of Mark Twain’s A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.
Oh dear. The Theatre World was extremely unimpressed, with its critic writing: “He [Fox] does little but display an excellent set of teeth. This he did so consistently that I almost searched my programme for acknowledgements to his dentist.”
Of course, these were the days, my friend, when the Thesbians were well and truly at it. When luvvies ruled the waves and the likes of John Gielgud was already giving of his Shakespearian very best at the Old Vic.
There wasn’t too much of a care for the problems of the average fella. The General Strike had come and gone and the Great Depression had yet to truly set in. The upmarket artistic crowd was still very much pottering along to see Miriam Lewes become an overnight star as Arkadin in The Seagull.
Up north, however, Everyman stirred. Drama, singing and music had played a part in the cultural life of the socialist movement since the turn of the century – even if your average blue collar chap was still being guided towards the doors of the local music hall to watch bland variety acts do their very worst – and the labour movement was leading an upsurge of theatrical activity. The Workers’ Theatre Movement was committed to using the stage as a secret weapon in the class struggle. This style became known as Agit-Prop – agitational and propaganda.
The origins of Theatre Workshop as traced by Howard Goorney lay in groups like the Clarion Players in Salford, Lancashire, where writer, actor and visionary Ewan MacColl adopted the slogan of the London groups: “A propertyless theatre for the propertyless class.” It was heady stuff with grand ideas.
As cotton mill strikes spread across the north west, MacColl set out to change the course of theatrical history. But it wasn’t until he got together with Joan Littlewood in London that the aims and the philosophy of their work became clear.
It was time to change Britain’s theatrical language from Noel Coward into a form which working people could understand and associate with. In short, let the stage become a soap box with a very small “s”. Actors need not necessarily be graduates of RADA or Oxbridge.
By 1953 Ms Littlewood and her troupe had moved to the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, E15 and a legend was born. The Theatre Workshop stood as a shining beacon of hope across the council estates of the East End. Nobody had to be posh to get up on stage and express themselves.
There were many ideological backstage clashes between MacColl and Littlewood before they parted company. But the spark had been lit for future acclaimed productions such as Oh, What a Lovely War, Sparrows Can’t Sing and A Taste of Honey.
A new generation of actors prospered under Littlewood including Harry H Corbett, Barbara Windsor, Brian Murphy and Victor Spinetti. Even a young Barry Humphries, in his pre-Dame Edna Everage days, had a platform for his young talent.
The late Howard Goorney saw it all as an actor, back-stager and chronicler of the Workshop. This was the birth of left wing theatre as we know it. And this book is a fitting tribute to the magnificent Ms Littlewood. Oh, what a lovely actress!
Ivan Waterman
