Interviews

Actor. Lindsay Anderson; Arden of Faversham; audiences; Billy Liar; John Bury; The Dutch Courtesan; commercial Theatre; critical reception; The Good Soldier Schweik; Harry Greene; Rudolf Laban; Joan Littlewood; Ken Loach; lighting; Ewan MacColl; Mother Courage; movement training; Jean Newlove; The Old Vic; Gerry Raffles; rehearsals; Richard II; Theatre Royal, Stratford East; Theatre Workshop; touring; Twelfth Night; Uranium 235; voice training; Volpone; West End transfers.

Interviewed by Kate Harris on 17/04/07

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Interview continued...

KH: What was your impression of Ewan MacColl’s involvement at the company at that point?

GC: We found, actually, over the years in the company that you either were a MacCollite or a Rafflite - you know, these were the two alternatives sort of thing.  I was a little bit uneasy with Ewan MacColl, not because he was a deserter from the army – you know, he was Jimmy Miller really and truly and then this name ‘Ewan MacColl’ is a load of rubbish really, he just thought of it, and he grew his beard and all that sort of thing. He had, in his opinion, some God-given right to get any young actress in the company into bed as soon as possible – that was his thing. You know he was married to Joan pre-war? And I think Joan had got a little bit cheesed off with… You know, he was off again with some other little lady or whatever, whatever. So that didn’t last very long. And it was a case of either you went along with this… this was all, you know it’s life, you know, it’s the way things happen.  Or Gerry - who of course later on had, you know committed the unforgivable sin of having another little bird in the costume room – he seemed to be much more rock steady. But Ewan never seemed to accept the fact that Gerry could influence Joan in any way in terms of what she did etc, etc. He seemed to have, in his opinion, some God-given right that he could still have influence over Joan, and ignore Gerry altogether sort of thing. So there were quite a few hot exchanges between Ewan and Gerry from time to time.  I always thought Gerry – who was a very, very strong powerful man – he could have sort of picked up Ewan and flung him across the room, but he was always very calm and cool about various things. So there was always that in the background, it wasn’t a sort of , ‘Oh isn’t everything wonderful in Theatre Workshop’ or lovey-dovey by any means, there was always this undercurrent: Ewan MacColl wanting to be top dog, and Ewan could never accept the fact that we should have a permanent home, he wanted to keep perpetually touring.
Howard - Howard Goorney - was a definitely a MacCollite, while I was always a Rafflite in how we approached things. I mean, Gerry had some terrible problems. Have you heard the story of how we got the set for Volpone and Arden of Faversham to Paris?

KH: I think I might have read about this, but do tell me anyway.

GC: Yes, well yes. I mean I… [Laughs] Gerry for some wonderful reason had persuaded the official gentleman who dealt with luggage etc, to treat the set as personal luggage. And he got little pink stickers all over… [Laughing] over the trees that we used in Arden of Faversham and the set for Volpone.

KH: It’s quite ingenious really.

GC: Oh it was, absolutely. Oh he… I mean, what that man must have gone through really financially! You know at one time… I do remember one incident… Because Gerry came from a very wealthy Jewish family, he’d stolen his mother’s ear-rings to sell for money to help the Theatre, and Joan made him take them back. [Laughs] …to sort this problem of finance.  But I thought the business of getting your set treated as personal luggage was a wonderful stroke etc, etc.
But what that man must have endured in terms of perpetual bills and crises, and threats of legal action and all the rest of it…! But he really was devoted to Joan. I mean, that sounds a bit phoney when you heard he also had a little bit of fancy for various other little ladies, but he was really serious about her position in the theatre. And I’m sure you’ll have read or have been told that he did everything - he even bought her clothes and that sort of set up! Because Joan couldn’t care less about the way she looked, she always had a sort of a tatty little woolly cap on. And she was very keen on the Gaulois and all that sort of thing… eventually she did stop that.  There was a little conflict there, because when we were… I think it must have been the Comedy Theatre when we were playing Uranium 235 there. Howard and I were sharing a dressing room, and we were both very strong non-smokers but Joan kept coming round at night-time, you know, with the notes from the previous night sort of thing, and she would insist on smoking her Gaulois. And we thought, ‘Right, sod you!’ and we put up a big notice: ‘No smoking allowed in this dressing room’. It didn’t work, she just ignored it you know she just…! [Laughs] So as I said… I mean, obviously there were all sorts of little ructions going on all the time.
And again, there was a little ruction with an actress called Doreen Warburton who was in Uranium 235, and Ewan was dealing with her at the time - getting her into bed on all occasions. And he was of course married to Jean Newlove at that time, with Hamish – as he was then - a little baby, their son. And Jean was getting very upset about this and so Joan sort of… I don’t know quite how she did it now… she somehow got rid of Doreen Warburton. She must have either given her the push straight away, just to get her out of the whole scene so that Jean Newlove could resume happy relations with Ewan MacColl for bringing up a family – because of course they had their daughter Kirsty after that.

KH: I was going to ask you actually, you mentioned her [Doreen Warburton] being in Uranium 235…

GC: Yes.

KH: I was going to ask you about Uranium 235 and what your impressions of it were?

GC: Oh I loved it. It was episodic.  It was sort of Brechtian in that we were all playing about 10 or 11 parts. And I have to tell you that the quickest changes of costume were to be seen in our presenting of Uranium 235! I’ve got a lovely story from Sweden: we were doing Uranium 235 over there and what you had to do was lay out your costumes in the wings for these quick changes etc. There were one or two people to help from the wardrobe or something like that, etc, but we could never be rich enough to employ stage hands - we never used a prompt for instance: that was, you know, an extra body as far as we were concerned! Anyway, we came to the stage in Uranium 235, where we were up to the present time for developing the bomb. And we all had dark, long trousers and long, white coats to make us look like scientists.  And the previous scene had just finished and we all dashed off, got into our white coats and dark trousers, and then back on stage, and there we were doing our bit [when] we suddenly realised that one of us – Johnny Armitage – had no trousers; he just had his white coat on! And what had happened, he’d whipped off stage from the previous scene to get his costume and he’d laid it out on the grand piano in the wings. And a large Swedish stagehand had decided he needed a rest, and went horizontal right over [Laughing] Johnny’s trousers. And by the time he’d woken him up it was time to go on, so he had no time to put his trousers on! I always think - to this day - that the Swedes watching it thought, ‘There’s something very symbolic in that. One of them had no trousers, what could that mean? There’s some deep theatrical meaning for that!’. [Laughing] That was a lovely example of [Laughs] what can go wrong in the wings etc, etc.

KH: That’s a fantastic story.

GC: But you were asking about the piece, it started… you know I’ve got to really think now about getting the stuff. It was sort of a little snapshot of various periods, I mean, they went back as far as Giordano Bruno being burnt at the stake! But the lighting by John Bury was terrific - this concentration on spots and all the rest of it… instead of just blanket lighting, which is so boring.  You can pick out so much more in the drama [by] really being selective with your light – give him a spot for that line etc, etc. You had to be careful about your position on stage, because of course it was all pre-set the lighting, so you had to be on your spot for that particular sequence. But I enjoyed… again you’ve got to remember that I was what, still in my twenties, and you were very much fitter and more active obviously then. You could… quite enjoy this business of whipping into the wings, whipping on another costume and ‘fwwp’ off again! So it was the sheer pace of it that really got into you I suppose, really and truly. And it was very well received… As I say, apart from having no Welsh audiences apart from the odd person turning up! Things got so desperate on those one night stand tours in Wales, [that] Gerry issued little leaflets saying, ‘If you bring this leaflet along to the Miners Hall tonight, we’ll let you in for nothing’, and even that didn’t work! [Laughs] So, I mean you’re getting pretty desperate when you’re saying… [Laughing] So as I say, that. And another time he got one of the actresses to put a kettle-drum on, and she had to go round this little Welsh village - wherever we were - beating the drum and saying you know, ‘Miners Hall tonight!’, wherever the show was. In other words, there was this constant business about… well Ewan always  talked about it… this was the lovely theory - and Joan of course kept talking about it - about bringing theatre to people who’ve been dispossessed. And I have to say I never accepted it. You know, it just wasn’t working. We were getting all sorts of posh, you know, theatre intellectuals and all the rest of… And the real people that we were supposed to be attracting into the theatre couldn’t care less. We started with Twelfth Night, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East 15, and I was playing Malvolio… various incidents [took place], they threw pennies on the stage, they threw toffees on the stage, they called me ‘Big Head!’ when I appeared in my hat. [Laughing] I think the locals who turned up thought, ‘Twelfth Night – it must be a bedroom farce or something. Twelfth Night, cooor!’ you know! And then they saw it was Shakespeare they were… [Laughs]

Interview continued...

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