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Age Concern Drama Group
Comments on theatre in Sheffield in the 1950s and 1960s. |
Transcript |
Robert Aldous
Actor. Bancroft Gold Medal; The Birthday Party; pantomime; Pinter’s plays; RADA; repertory; Royal Court Theatre; The Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield; theatre design; touring |
Transcript |
Michael Allen
Theatre-goer. Peggy Ashcroft; Richard Burton; Jean-Louis Barrault; French plays; Christopher Fry; John Gielgud; Vivien Leigh; Moscow Arts Theatre; Laurence Olivier; John Osborne; programmes; Anthony Quayle; Royal Shakespeare Company; Shakespeare performance; George Bernard Shaw; The Shaw Festival; theatre-going; translated plays; Kenneth Tynan; verse-speaking The Wandering Jew; Orson Welles; Donald Wolfit. |
Transcript |
Ian Noel Anderson
Stage worker. Brighton theatres; cinema; comedy; John Gielgud; Howard Goorney; The Lady’s not for Burning; London theatre-going; Laurence Olivier; Ralph Richardson; repertory; scenery painting; street entertainers; Theatre Workshop; toy theatres. |
Transcript |
Joe Aveline
Production Manager. A Flea in Her Ear; As You Like It; audience interaction; Bristol Old Vic, Laurence Olivier; Othello; The National Theatre; props; Leonard Rossiter; Royal Hunt of the Sun; Stage 60; touring; vocal projection; Lesley Wallner; West End productions. |
Transcript |
Gerry Atkins
Dancer. The Adventures of David Crockett; Atkins and Brandon. Can Can; Catlin’s; digs; Folies Bergere; Roger Stephanie; The Tivoli Circuit; touring; Palace Theatre, Westcliff; The Windmill Show; Zip Goes A Million. |
Transcript |
David Ayliff
Director and Stage Manager. Actors; H.K. Ayliff; Equity; King Lear; Laurence Olivier; Ralph Richardson; scenery; sound effects; stage management; the Stage Management Association; technical rehearsals; television; training; Two for the Seesaw. |
Transcript |
Geoff Ayres
Theatre-goer. Amateur dramatics; British theatre around the world; Shelagh Delaney; The Entertainer; European drama; John Gielgud; Harold Hobson; Inadmissible Evidence; Laben movement; Joan Littlewood; Wolf Mankowitz; NUS Drama Festival; the Old Vic; Laurence Olivier; John Osborne; Harold Pinter; Richard II; The Tempest; theatre going; Theatre Royal Stratford; Theatre Workshop; Theatre Workshop techniques and repertoire; Kenneth Tynan. |
Transcript |
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Jean Barbour
Variety artiste. Auditions; agents; backstage; The Barbour Brothers; Peter Barbour; Roy Barbour; comedians; dancing; The Dancing Years; Bernard Delfont; digs; dressing rooms; The Ed Sullivan Show; The Grade Organisation; Francis Laidler; Emile Littler; music; pantomime; rehearsals (band calls); Beryl Reid; Cliff Richard; Speciality Acts; Stars in Battledress; Summer Seasons; stilt dancing; Theatre Clubs; touring abroad; touring (UK); Arthur Worsley. |
Transcript |
Sue Barbour
Variety performer. Actors’ Church Union; audiences; being the child of variety performers; Roy Castle; digs; Sir Lew and Lesley Grade; Music Hall; pantomime; Pier productions; Cliff Richard and the Shadows; standing at the side of the stage; travel; Variety; variety acts; variety traditions; Zip Goes a Million. |
Transcript |
Thelma Barlow
Actress. Bristol Old Vic; Birmingham Rep; critics; Edinburgh Festival; female theatre managers; Liverpool; Glasgow; Nottingham; repertory; repertoire; theatre grants; Theatre Workshop; touring; West of England Theatre Company. |
Transcript |
Leonie Barnett
Sister of Joe Orton. Defacement of books in Islington Library; education; family background; Kenneth Halliwell; homosexuality; Leicester; Joe Orton; Orton’s interest in the popular voice; parental role models; play-writing; Prick Up Your Ears; RADA; Peggy Ramsay. |
Transcript |
Peter Bartlett
Actor. Auditions; BBC drama; George Bernard Shaw; Charlie Chaplin; Edith Evans; Equity; John Gielgud; learning parts; Look Back in Anger; RADA; Michael Redgrave; touring (Germany); touring (UK); Orson Welles. |
Transcript |
Professor Christopher Baugh
John Bury; censorship; critics; designers; Stephen Joseph; Everyman Theatre, Liverpool; National Theatre Company; Oh What a Lovely War!; repertory; Royal Shakespeare Company; The Society for Theatre Research; theatre lighting. |
Transcript |
Keith Baxter
Actor. Accent; A Man For All Seasons; celebrity; censorship; directors; Mary Duff; John Gielgud; practical theatre; RADA; Shakespeare's plays; star actors; Tea and Sympathy; H.M. Tennent; theatre traditions; Kenneth Tynan; Orson Welles. |
Transcript |
Lynda Bellingham
Actress. Actresses; audiences; auditions; Calendar Girls; comedy; critics; Mark Field; language; Rebecca McCutcheon; Ros Povey; Romeo and Juliet; Philip Ridley; rehearsals; reviews; theatre-going; Trafalgar Theatre Studios; Vincent River. |
Transcript |
Frank Bench
Theatregoer. Arts funding; audience size; CEMA; commercial and non-commercial plays; ensemble acting; Harold Pinter; theatre impresarios; Theatre-in-Education; The Winslow Boy; wages. |
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A.K. Bennett-Hunter
Stage Manager and Production Manager. Audiences; backstage crafts (carpentry, electicals); Lyric Theatre, Belfast; Soozie Copley; Irish plays and playwrights; Jeeves; Haymarket Theater, Leicester; Phoenix Theatre, Leicester; lighting; Mary O’Malley; repertory; television; Trinity College Dublin Dramatic Society. |
Transcript |
David Berglas
Magician. Auditioning; Kenny Baker; BBC; Burton Brown; Roy Castle; digs; Elizabeth and Collins; Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Orchestra; Lew and Leslie Grade; hypnosis; Dean Martin; Meet David Berglas; Ruby Murray; Nationwide psychological experiments; Picture Post magic stunt; The Three Hellos; touring; Dickie Valentine; visits South Africa; Ronnie Waldman; Windmill Theatre. |
Transcript |
George Biggs
Theatre Manager. Blackpool theatres; Bronson Albery; Donald Albery; ballet; Box Office; cinema; Bernard Delfont; farces; Harold Fielding; Lew Grade; H.M. Tennents; Prince Littler; Lord Chamberlain; musicals; the National Theatre; opera; producers; provincial theatre; repertory; Royal Opera House; stars; Stoll Moss Empires; Summer Seasons; theatre owners; ticket prices; variety; West End theatre. |
Transcript |
Pamela Binns
Actress. The Beaux’ Stratagem; Birmingham Repertory Theatre; The Blue Bird; censorship; David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield; Fings Ain’t Wot they Used T’Be; The Ghost Train; The High Bid; Barry Jackson; Ann Jellicoe; Stephen Joseph; pantomime; Roy Plomley; repertory; Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More; stage food; touring; Kenneth Tynan. |
Transcript |
Elizabeth Boxer
Actor, on training at LAMDA, working with Jack Hulbert, repertory
theatre in the 1950s and 1960s. |
Transcript |
Philip Bramley
Theatre-goer. 1950s society; accents; American theatre; Antony and Cleopatra; Caesar and Cleopatra;John Gielgud; Hair; Henry V; The Homecoming; Liverpool theatres; Look Back In Anger; Oh! Calcutta; the Old Vic; Lawrence Olivier; Peter O’Toole; regional theatre, Saved; social issues; theatre stars; Waiting for Godot; Donald Wolfit. |
Transcript |
Dorien Brooks
Theatregoer. London: Noel Coward, Priestley, Look Back in Anger. |
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Kenneth Brown
Theatre-goer. Alan Ayckbourne’s plays; Bertolt Brecht; Blackpool Tower Circus; incidental music; Manchester theatres; Frank Matcham theatres; musical theatre; John Osborne’s plays; pantomime; The Piccolo Players; refreshments; repertoire; revues; Shakespeare; Stockport Theatres; theatre design; theatre-going; Theatre in the Round; variety. |
Transcript |
Ross Brown
Sound-designer. Samuel Beckett; development of sound design as a profession; musicals; National Theatre sound-design; role of sound-designer; salaries; sound in plays; symbolists; technical requirements of sound-design. |
Transcript |
David Budworth
Theatre-goer. Actors; Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham; Birmingham Rep; censorship; Christopher Fry; musicals; J.B. Priestley; regional theatre; repertory theatre; television; ticket price; verse drama; West End plays; Waiting For Godot. |
Transcript |
Alfred Burke
Actor Alfred Burke on his memories of The Old Vic 1930s; Training
at RADA 1937; Repertory theatre; Arts Council Tours; The Young Vic,
George Devine and Michel Saint Denis; The Library Theatre, Manchester;
New writing; Birmingham Rep; Memories of directors; Impressions of
John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Ion Swinley; Impact
of early television; Censorship. |
Transcript |
Lionel Burman
Theatre-goer 1945-68. Absurdist theatre; audiences; Samuel Beckett; censorship; Club theatres; Eugene Ionesco; London theatre-going; Look Back in Anger; Spike Milligan; Merseyside Unity; musicals; Luigi Pirandello; The Playhouse, Liverpool; production styles; ticket prices; Theatre Workshop. |
Transcript |
Tony Burrows
Audience member Tony Burrows on his memories of theatre going in the 1950’s; Stratford; The Midland Theatre Company; The Coventry Hippodrome; Memories of seeing Gielgud and Ralph Richardson; Impressions of Harold Pinter’s plays; Involvement with The Talisman Amateur dramatic Company; Censorship; Hair |
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Charlie Cairoli
Clown, Variety. Agents; Gordon Blackie; Tower Circus, Blackpool; Charlie Cairoli senior, digs; employment; family involvement; pantomime; Cliff Richard; Second World War; touring; This Is Your Life. |
Transcript |
Claudi Cairoli
Child of Variety players, Variety. The Great Cingalee; circus; costume; De Vere dancers; Val Doonican; illusionists; learning acts; Paula Lee; Roy Lester; living arrangements; music; pantomime; Summer Seasons; stars; touring. |
Transcript |
Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball
Comedy double-act. Agents; audience; Batley Variety Club; Cabaret Clubs; costume; digs; Charlie Drake; magicians; Stan Moore’s trio; Night Clubs; pantomime; television (LWT); touring; Working Men’s Clubs. |
Transcript |
Jan Carey
Actress. Assistant Stage Manager; auditions; critics; female roles; The Guildhall School of Music and Drama; Arthur Gurney; Mermaid Theatre; Arthur Miller; musicals; Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond; repertory; Paul Scofield; Spring and Port Wine; theatre-going; television; theatre in the round. |
Transcript |
Robert Cawley
Theatre-goer. Peggy Ashcroft; censorship; costumes; critics; John Gielgud; Hamlet; musicals; new wave writing; Laurence Olivier; playwrights; Terence Rattigan; regional theatre; Royal Court Theatre; scripts; Shakespeare; star actors; St Joan; theatre-going; theatre in the round; ticket price; Kenneth Tynan; verse speaking. |
Transcript |
Jonathan Cecil
Actor. Amateur Dramatics; Ambrosine Philpots; Bartholomew Fair; Binkie Beaumont; The Birthday Party; comedy; ‘Professor’ Jimmy Edwards; Sir John Gielgud; Half-Way up the Tree; A Heritage and its History; Home; LAMDA; Robert Morley; overacting; pantomime, Harold Pinter; Vanessa Redgrave; repertory; Ralph Richardson; Reggie Salberg; Salisbury Playhouse; Tommy Steele; David Story; Eric Sykes, television; H.M. Tennent; Tommy Trinder; Sir Peter Ustinov. |
Transcript |
Duggie Chapman
Comedian and Producer, Variety. Agents; BBC radio; Collins Music Hall, London; The Cure for Love; digs; Dudley Dale; Carol Levis; Mid-day Music Hall; music; orchestras; pantomime; Summer Seasons [Jersey, Skegness, Blackpool]; touring; travel. |
Transcript |
Freda Chapple
Theatre worker. Stage manager on the opening night of the Sydney Opera House,
now teaches drama in the Institute for Lifelong Learning. |
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Elizabeth Chater
Actor, working for the King's Theatre Gainsborough, 'outreach'
theatre for Holloway Prison in the 1950s, acting in repertory. |
Transcript |
Peter Cheeseman
Former artistic director of the Victoria Theatre, Staffordshire,
Experiences with the Lord Chamberlain. |
Transcript |
David Chivers
Actor and Stage Manager. A Breath of Spring; A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum Ian Albery; Bristol Old Vic Theatre School; Esme Church; digs; Rudolf Laban; repertory; school theatre; Athene Seyler; touring; voice training |
Transcript |
Mike Churchill
Theatre Manager. Actors; audiences; backstage technology (lighting, scenery, sound); cinema; Lord Bernard Delfont; Front of House; Harvey; Cameron Mackintosh; Prince of Wales Theatre; refreshments; souvenirs; James Stewart; theatre-going; theatre maintenance; theatre security; theatre toilets; ticket agencies. |
Transcript |
Shelli Cingalee
Magician, Variety. Russ Abbott; agents; backstage; digs; The Great Cingalee; Paula Lee; relations with other acts; touring |
Transcript |
Barry Clayton
Actor. Arden of Faversham; audiences; auditions; Bradford Northern Theatre School; Brendan Behan; Barbara Brown; censorship; critics; The Good Soldier Schweik; International Theatre Festival; Joan Littlewood; Mother Courage; production ideas; The Quare Fellow; rehearsals; Theatre Workshop; West End transfers. |
Transcript |
Michael Codron
Producer. Actors; Alphabetical Order; The Birthday Party; The Caretaker; censorship; critics; directors; ‘Dirty Plays’ controversy; Entertaining Mr Sloane; Gallery First Nighters; The Homecoming; Jack Hylton The Killing of Sister George; Joan Littlewood; Look Back in Anger; London Arts Theatre; Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith; Donald McWhinnie; Joe Orton; Harold Pinter; producers; Peggy Ramsay; scripts; Share My Lettuce; There's a Girl in My Soup; Kenneth Williams; writers. |
Transcript |
Austin Cole
Theatre-goer. Frank Adie; Tommy Cooper; Cecily Courtneidge; Noel Coward; G.H. Elliot; Roy Hudd; Jack and Claude Hulbert; London Coliseum; Murray and Mooney; music hall; new writing; Ivor Novello; Beryl Reid; Sheffield theatres; theatre seating; variety; Waiting for Godot; West End. |
Transcript |
Brian Cook
Actor. Accent; actors; Arts Educational School; Arts Theatre, Belfast; audiences; casting; Children’s Theatre; the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield; directing; funding; pantomime; RADA; regional theatres; repertory; Shakespeare; television; theatre-going; Brian Way. |
Transcript |
George Cooper
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. |
Transcript |
Eileen Cottis
Theatre-goer. The Bells; Brecht’s plays; Cinema; critics; Peter Daubeny; Edwige Feuillère; French drama; John Geilgud; International Federation for Theatre Research; Vivien Leigh; London theatre; melodrama; Mermaid Theatre, London; Laurence Olivier; Othello; Oxford theatres; pantomime; radio; Saturday Night Theatre; Shakespeare; Maggie Smith; Stop It, Whoever You Are; television; ticket price; theatre-going; Theatre Workshop; Kenneth Tynan; Arnold Wesker. |
Transcript |
David Coulter
Actor. Accent; actor-managers; audiences; censorship; John Gielgud; learning parts; Joan Littlewood; Micheál MacLíammóir; Anew McMaster; motives for theatre-going; new writing; Othello; revue artistes; technique; theatre in the Commonwealth; theatre in Ireland; weekly repertory; Wise Child. |
Transcript |
Joy Cox King
Theatre-goer. Amateur acting; Birmingham theatres; Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton; My Fair Lady; play-goers clubs; theatre-going; ticket prices; Variety; well-made plays. |
Transcript |
Barry Craine
Variety artiste, Comedian. American theatre; band calls; The Bathroom; Collins’ Music Hall, Islington Green; comedy routines; costume; digs; Fred Karno’s Army; Tony Hancock; North-East Clubs; originality of material; The Three Hats; touring; variety billing; Max Wall. |
Transcript |
William Crow
Theatregoer 1945-68; Censorship; Irish Theatre; influence of European
theatre; Visiting the first runs of Harold Pinter's plays. |
Transcript |
Graeme Cruickshank
Stage Manager and Actor. James Bolam; Richard Burnett’s Penguin Players; Agatha Christie’s plays; Carl Clopet; Company Manager’s duties; Harry Corbett and Sooty; John Counsell; Cecily Courtneidge; Peter Haddon; Arthur Lane and Audrey Lupton; lighting; Ralph Lynn; Cameron Mackintosh; Mermaid Theatre; Oxford Playhouse; pantomime; Ron Pember; repertory repertoire; Clarkson Rose; Salad Days; stage managing; touring; A View from the Bridge; Wakefield Mystery Plays. |
Transcript |
Maurice Crutchlow
Theatre-goer. Peggy Ashcroft; Frederick Ashton’s Fille Mal Gardée; ballet, Chichester Festival; Coventry theatres; Edinburgh Festival; Christopher Gable; Kitchen Sink dramas; musicals; the National Theatre; S.H. Newsome; Laurence Olivier, opera, Royal Shakespeare Company; set design; star casts; theatre-going; ticket prices; traditional plays; variety; The Wars of the Roses; West End theatre-going; West Side Story. |
Transcript |
Frances Cuka
Actress. A Taste of Honey; Avis Bunnage; critics; Endgame; Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be; Guildhall School of Music and Drama; Joan Littlewood; Macbeth; Royal Court Theatre; rehearsals; Russian audiences; Theatre Royal, Brighton; Theatre Workshop; Vanity Fair. |
Transcript |
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Alastair Davidson
Theatre Manager and Stage Manager. Audiences; Chimes at Midnight; Commonwealth Festival; Edinburgh Festival; Fraser Neil Players; happenings; the House of Mutrie; Oliver!; opera; pantomime; props; RADA; repertory theatre; resident revue; Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet; set building; touring (UK); touring (foreign); variety; Orson Welles; Wexford Opera Festival; World Theatre Seasons. |
Transcript |
David Davies
Actor, Pinter's The Room. Bristol Old Vic; Bristol University drama department; The Cherry Orchard; Dartington Hall; Susan Engel; Fulbright students; the Green Room Theatre; Look Back in Anger; method acting; modern drama; Peter O'Toole; pauses; Harold Pinter; rehearsals; reviews; The Room; Auriol Smith; the Theatre of the Absurd; well-made plays; Henry Woolf. |
Transcript |
Johnny Dennis
Actor. An Ideal Husband; Maria Callas; censorship; Charlie Chaplin; critics; image; Tito Gobbi; Bernard Miles; music hall; Laurence Olivier; opera; preparation; rehearsals; stardom; television; theatre atmosphere; theatre etiquette; theatre-going; RSC; Tosca. |
Transcript |
John De Lannoy
Stage Manager and Director. Peter Bridge; George Formby; Bruce Forsyth; foreign touring; Grand Theatre, Halifax; An Ideal Husband; Emile Littler; pantomime; Ian Paul; rehearsals; repertory; scenery; stage management; Stephen D; John V. Trevor; twice-nightly shows; touring; Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford. |
Transcript |
Sarah Detmer
Audience member talking about her recollections of Richardson, Gielgud
and Olivier; World Theatre seasons. |
Transcript |
Richard Digby Day
Freelance Director, Artistic Director of the Northcott Theatre 1978-80,
on training in RADA; Wesker's plays; Kenneth Tynan and censorship. |
Transcript |
Eileen Diss
Designer. The Basement; BBC; Central School of Arts and Crafts; design developments; Ealing Studios; The Mermaid Theatre; Harold Pinter; sets; special effects. |
Transcript |
Tony Dorney
Music Hall and London theatre 1950-68; meeting David Mercer; Olivier
at the Old Vic; première of Oh, What a Lovely War! |
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Colin Draper
Stage Manager of the Richmond Theatre; on changes in lighting technology;
Repertory Stage Management; the impact of 'Realism'; Repertory prop
acquistion. |
Transcript |
Tony Dunn
Theatre-goer. Berthold Brecht; Early Morning; fringe theatre; Hedda Gabler; impact of the Lady Chatterley trial; Italian theatre; Liverpool theatre; Living Theatre; Marat/Sade; Mother Courage (Gaskill production); Royal Shakespeare Company; Saved; Paul Scofield’s Lear; theatre dress-code; Monica Vitti; The Wars of the Roses. |
Transcript |
Shirley Dynevor
Actress. Audiences; audition; A Christmas Carol; The Good Soldier Schweik; influences; Laban movement; Joan Littlewood; Ewan MacColl; money; new writing; politics; The Quare Fellow; reinterpretations of classic plays; Richard II; Theatre Royal, Stratford East; television; Theatre Workshop; twice-nightly rep; West End. |
Transcript |
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Susan Engel
Actress; Pinter’s The Room. Audience; Bristol University Drama Department; Samuel Beckett; characterisation; DramSoc; drama school; Harold Hobson; production; props; Harold Pinter; reviews; the script; Raphael Shelly; Jimmy Wax. |
Transcript |
Barbara Eifler
Stage Manager and Executive Director of the Stage Management Association. Carmen; Chester Mystery Plays; Earls Court; English Theatre in Frankfurt; English Touring Theatre; Equity; Greg Hersov; John Tams; Mike Kay; Munich Biennale with Jonathan Moore; Northern Mystery Plays; opera; Orchard Theatre; Pete Goodwin; rehearsals; repertory theatre; Royal College of Music; Royal Exchange Theatre; Royal Opera House; SMA magazine; spectacular theatre and opera; stage management; Stage Management Association; stage management contract; subsidised repertory theatre; Theatre Clwyd; The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield; The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham; VE Day celebrations in Hyde Park; Francesca Zambello's Tosca. |
Transcript |
Elizabeth Ewing
Began her theatregoing career in 1945; Early experiences in Sheffield;
Musical theatre in London 1956; Premiere of Separate Tables. |
Transcript |
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Malcolm Farquhar
Actor and former Artistic Director of the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.
On Repertory; Theatregoing 1945-68; Secrets of successful direction;
Post-war star system of the West End. |
Transcript |
Peggie Faulkner
Company Manager. Auditions; African actors; Angry Young Men; Aren’t We All; costumes and sets; The Entertainer; Golden City; The Innocents; the London Pavilion; Lord Chamberlain; Stephen Mitchell; Laurence Olivier; pantomime; Terence Rattigan; repertory theatre; Stanley Hall’s Wig Creations; theatre-going; wigs; Emlyn Williams; The Year of the Seventeenth Doll. |
Transcript |
Anthony Field CBE
Theatre Producer, Theatre Project consultant, former Finance Director of the Arts Council. Arts Administration; the Arts Council; Arts Council Funding 1957-1983; audiences; A View from the Bridge; Binkie Beaumont; Cameron Mackintosh; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Cats; censorship; The Comedy Theatre, club theatres, H.M. Tennent’s; the Lord Chamberlain; My Fair Lady; The New Watergate Theatre; new writing; Oklahoma!; regional theatre; Tea and Sympathy; Theatre Workshop. |
Transcript |
Richard Foster
Theatre-goer and amateur actor. Acting; censorship; The Caretaker; musicals; Music Hall; Oklahoma!; Harold Pinter; protest plays; Sheffield theatre; television; theatre-going; touring |
Transcript |
Pat Francis
Theatregoer, on East Ham Palace; Joan Littlewood; Seeing Brendan Behan's
plays; Chekhov. |
Transcript |
Penny Francis
Actress. A Multitude of Sins; Ronnie Barker; costumes; dressing rooms; Equity; Derek Francis; Sir Peter Hall; Pygmalion; Peter Pan; puppetry; theatre training; touring; Two Loves I Have; Kenneth Tynan; weekly repertory; Emlyn Williams. |
Transcript |
Richard Franklin
Actor, Director, Writer. Approaching drama texts; Century Theatre, Keswick; Michael Crawford; Peter Dews; Doctor Who; drama school; emotion in acting; RADA; repertory theatre; stunts; theatre company hierarchies; theatre traditions; voice; Webber Douglas School of Acting. |
Transcript |
Sonia Fraser
Actress and Director. Accent; A Taste of Honey; audiences; Bristol Old Vic School; censorship; directing; Ibsen; Look Back in Anger; modern plays; repertory; rehearsing; RSC; Shakespeare; theatre-going habits; theatre training. |
Transcript |
Michael Frayn
Playwright
and novelist: influences. |
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Ronald Freeman
Theatre manager. Audiences; John Logie Baird; Ken Dodd; EABF (Entertainment Artists’ Benevolent Fund); ENSA; Jerry Fisher; Grand Order of Water Rats; Mimi Law; organ playing; pantomime; Ryde Pavilion Theatre; Jimmy Tarbuck; Variety; Billy Whitaker; Tommy Whitaker aka The Great Coram. |
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Terence Frisby
Playwright, actor, director, producer. Antony and Cleopatra; Peter Bridge; censorship; Robert Chetwyn; Michael Codron; critics; Gérard Depardieu; Barbara Ferris; Globe Theatre (now the Geilgud Theatre); Guildford Repertory Theatre; Sheila Hancock; Hugh Hastings; Phyllida Law; Eric Longworth; Merchant of Venice; Jon Pertwee; repertory theatre; Raymond Rouleau; Donald Sinden; The Subtopians; There’s a Girl in my Soup; Edward Woodward. |
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Jean Gaffin
Theatre-worker. Actors; Arts Council grant; Bertolt Brecht; censorship; critics; The Good Soldier Schweik; Howard Goorney; Yootha Joyce; Joan Littlewood; Lord Chamberlain; Ewan MacColl; Mother Courage; Murray Melvin; music; politics; productions; The Quare Fellow; Gerry Raffles; Richard II; Tony Richardson; theatre-going; Theatre Workshop; Kenneth Tynan. |
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John Gale
Actor and Producer. Actors; Donald Albery; Assistant Stage Manager; audiences; Ronnie Barker; Binkie Beaumont; Big Fish Little Fish; Boeing-Boeing; Candida; censorship; comedians; comedies; Noel Coward; digs; James Donald; Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be; Inherit the Wind; Lord Chamberlain; On the Brighter Side; Present Laughter; producing plays; repertory; regional audiences; The Secretary Bird; Where Angels Fear to Tread. |
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Professor Viv Gardner
On British Drama League; Theatregoing in the 1960s; Regional theatre;
Impact of Brecht. |
Transcript |
Pauline Gaunt
Actress. Accommodation; audiences; Binkie Beaumont; Castle Theatre, Farnborough; community spirit; costumes; Noel Coward; Bernard Delfont; French’s Acting Editions; Kenneth Moore; the Penguin Players; props; repertoire; re-writing scripts; salaries; sets; Spotlight; stage management; The Stars Shine for Jack – The Crazy Gang, Marlene Dietrich, Spike Milligan; Suite in Three Keys; television; weekly rep.; West End productions; Irene Worth. |
Transcript |
Colin George
Actor and Director. A Man for All Seasons; audiences; Birmingham Rep; children’s theatre; Coventry Belgrade Theatre; The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield; drama students; The Elizabethan Theatre Company; Albert Finney; Tyrone Guthrie; Peter Hall; Laurence Olivier; Look Back in Anger; Harold Pinter; The Playhouse, Nottingham; The Playhouse, Sheffield; repertory; Maggie Smith; television. |
Transcript |
James Gill
Actor and Stage Manager. Audiences; Jean-Louis Barrault; censorship; foreign influence on British theatre; Hair; Loamshire plays; method acting; Music Hall; new writing; John Osborne; repertory; Robert and Elizabeth; stage management; theatre design; Theatre Royal, Leicester; ticket price; Webber-Douglas Theatre School |
Transcript |
David Girling
Theatregoer 1945-68, on original run of Waiting for Godot,
John Osborne's Luther, George Devine, John Gielgud and the
Oxford University Drama Society. |
Transcript |
Jacqueline Glasser
Theatregoer and Literary Agent. Audiences; authors; critics; Gwen Ffrangçon-Davies; Sir John Gielgud; Golders Green Hippodrome; Old Vic Theatre; SirLaurence Olivier; John Osborne; National Theatre; Royal Court Theatre; Shakespeare productions; star casts; H.M.Tennent; theatre-going; theatre magazines; ticket prices. |
Transcript |
Renee Goddard &
her husband Hanno Fry
Renee Goddard professional actress, stage manager, script reader 1943-1954;
Glyndebourne Children's Theatre; Salome; Theatre workshop;
Weekly Rep; Oscar Lewenstein; Embassy Theatre; Brecht's Threepenny
Opera; Touring in Antony and Cleopatra with Olivier
and Vivien Leigh; Meeting Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble; Reading
Scripts for Donald Albery; The first read-through of Waiting for
Godot; Meeting Jean Genet; Staging The Blacks; Working
in early television. |
Transcript |
Pearl Goodman
Actress and singer. Audiences; digs; domestic service; The Flying Doctor; Joan Littlewood; Ewan MacColl; Johnny Noble; Gerry Raffles; rehearsals; David Scase; Theatre Workshop; touring; training; Uranium 235. |
Transcript |
Leila and Gerald Gould
Secretary to Theatre Workshop and her husband. Authors; Big Rock Candy Mountain; George Cooper; drama techniques; East London Theatres; Howard Goorney; Joan Littlewood; money; plays; politics; theatre-going; Theatre Royal, Stratford East; Theatre Workshop; the Theatre Workshop cast. |
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Mervyn Gould
Theatre Worker. Decline of theatre business; employment pattern; New Theatre, Cambridge; lighting; Number One theatres; pantomime; Regal Theatre, Boston; relationship between Cast and Technical Crew; Sunderland Empire; touring; union membership; West End theatres. |
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Frank Grace
Theatre-goer. Bertold Brecht; Peter Brook; club theatres; Caucasian Chalk Circle; John Gielgud; Look Back in Anger; musicals; the Old Vic; Sir Laurence Olivier; repertory; Theatre of Cruelty; Theatre Workshop; ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore; Titus Andronicus; A View from the Bridge; Windsor Repertory; Donald Wolfit. |
Transcript |
Michael Grade
Chief Executive of ITV, Variety. ATV; Billy Cotton and his Band; Blackpool variety; Bernie Delfont, Baron Delfont; Delfont and Toko; dressing rooms; Foster’s Agency; GAC (Buddy Howe); Lew and Leslie Grade Ltd; Leslie Grade; Lew Grade, Baron Grade; The Grade Organisation; Laurel and Hardy; London Palladium; Billy Marsh; Moss Empires; Val Parnel; running orders; Richard Tauber; Bob Williams; Cissie Williams. |
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David Grant
Actor and Stage Manager. Actors; American influence in theatre; audiences, censorship; Company Managers; directors; Sir John Gielgud; Home; Ethel Merman; musicals; props; repertory; Sir Ralph Richardson; theatre design; theatre-going; Touring, West End productions. |
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Frances Gray
Writer and theatre-goer, Senior Lecturer at Sheffield University. John Arden; Armstrong’s Last Goodnight; Alan Aykbourne; Brenton Bond; Michael Boyd; Bertold Brecht’s plays; Brimstone and Treacle; Peter Brook; Chichester Festival Theatre; The Crucible Theatre, Shefffield; Steve Daldry; Peter Daubeny’s international theatre seasons; Flourish; Marat/Sade; The National Theatre; Laurence Olivier; Othello; John Osborne; programmes; published plays; radio; Royal Hunt of the Sun; Royal Shakespeare Company; Shakespeare; Maggie Smith; theatre-going; Mary Ure; US; David Warner. |
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Ronald Gray
Theatre-goer. Alfie Bass; Samuel Beckett; Berliner Ensemble; Italian opera; King Lear; Look Back in Anger; Mother Courage; Old Vic; Laurence Olivier; Paul Robeson; Saturday Night Theatre; Shakespeare; Soviet cinema; Theatre Workshop; Unity Theatre; Orson Welles. |
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Peter Green
Actors' Agent; Actors; agency routine; celebrity; The Entertainer; Equity; John Gielgud; London theatre; Laurence Olivier; Manager of the Vaudeville Theatre, London; modern drama; Regional theatre; Repertory; Setting up an Actors' Agency; television; Richard Wilson. |
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Yvonne Green
Theatregoer 1945-68, on Musicals; Ionesco; Dressing up for theatre
visits. |
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Harry Greene
Actor. Amateur drama; actors; John Bury; George Cooper; critics; ensemble; Equity; lighting; Joan Littlewood; Ewan MacColl, New Theatre, Cardiff; props; productions; realism; The Red Megaphones; Red Roses for Me; rehearsal method; Royal Court Theatre; scenery; the search for a permanent home; Harry Secombe; Swedish tour; television; theatre-going; Theatre Workshop; touring; Uranium 235; wages; West End transfers. |
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Trevor Griffiths
Professor of Drama at London Metropolitan University; Birmingham Rep
during 1960s. |
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John Haffenden
Professor at Sheffield University. RSC during the 1960s. |
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Jacci Hamilton
Theatregoer at Golders Green Hippodrome and Sheffield Playhouse during
the late 1950s and early 1960s. |
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Tony Hampton
Chairman of the Sheffield Playhouse, Artistic Director of
the Crucible, on the construction of the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield,
and press reaction. |
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Philip Hancock
Actor; list of theatre experience; education at drama school; sound in the theatre (music and effects); working with Peter Hall; experience with repertory theatre; idols and geniuses (working with famous actors) ; life as an actor; drama vs. comedy; role of music in the theatre |
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Edward Hardwicke
Actor. Acting styles; Berthold Brecht; Bristol Old Vic.; The Crucible; John Dexter; film; the National Theatre; the Old Vic, Laurence Olivier; make-up; Othello; repertory; Ralph Richardson; Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; Royal Hunt of the Sun; television; theatre-going habits; Kenneth Tynan; Robert Wagner; the West of England Theatre Company. |
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John Haynes
Photographer. Samuel Beckett; Edward Bond; George Devine; Bill Gaskill; David Hare; Jocelyn Herbert; Home; Keith Johnson; The Living Theatre; Charles Marowitz; Joe Orton; John Osborne; photography; rehearsals; Royal Court Theatre; David Storey; Taking the Stage. |
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Neil Heayes
Theatre-goer. Peggy Ashcroft; Robert Atkins; Brixton Theatre; Jack Buchanan; Cyrano de Bergerac; The First Gentleman; John Gielgud; Hamlet; Haymarket Theatre; Robert Helpmann; Mona Inglesby and the International Ballet Company; King Lear; King's Theatre, Hammersmith; Esmond Knight; Vivien Leigh; Love for Love; Lupino family; Oedipus Rex and The Critic; Old Vic; Laurence Olivier; Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park; Paganini; programmes; Ralph Richardson; the Savoy Operas; Firth Shepherd; Alistair Simm; Streatham Hill Theatre; the Travelling Repertory Theatre; ticket prices; Rex Whistler; Donald Wolfit. |
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Philip Hedley
Actor, Theatre-goer and Director Emeritus, Theatre Royal Stratford East. Arts Council; Margaret Bury; critics; Shelagh Delaney; East 15 Acting School; Intimate Theatre, Palmer's Green; directing; directors; Ben Jonson; LAMDA; Joan Littlewood; Michael Macowen; movement classes; Jean Newlove; Royal Court Theatre; David Scase; Stratford East; Theatre Royal, Lincoln; three-weekly rep; weekly rep |
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William Hemmingway
Theatre-goer and actor. Audiences; Burnley theatre; experimental theatre; Look Back in Anger; Joan Littlewood; Manchester Library Theatre; David Scace; schools television; Theatre Workshop; theatre-going; Theatre Libero; West Side Story. |
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Bernard Hepton
Actor and Director. Samuel Beckett; Birmingham Repertory Theatre; Bradford Civic Playhouse; Esme Church; The Devils; Directing; Fortnightly repertory; Sir Barry Jackson; Krapp's Last Tape; National Theatre; One Way Pendulum; Penny for a Song; television; John Whiting |
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Nick Hern
Publisher, academic and theatre-goer. Actors; Bristol Old Vic; Bristol University Drama Department; Chips With Everything; Glasgow University Drama Department; Heinemann; Hull University Drama Department; National Theatre; The Old Vic; Harold Pinter’s plays; publishing drama; refreshments; Royal Hunt of the Sun; Royal Shakespeare Company; Peter Shaffer’s plays; Kenneth Tynan; The War of the Roses. |
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Harold Hobson
Theatre Critic; Writing for the Christian Science Monitor; Writing for the Sunday Times; Osborne and Look Back in
Anger; process of reviewing plays; Sartre; Peter Hall and Waiting
for Godot; Christopher Fry; political theatre. |
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John Holt
Theatre-goer. A Taste Of Honey, audience behaviour; censorship; club theatres; The Entertainer; Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton; Harold Pinter; Joan Littlewood; John Osborne; Look Back in Anger; Oh! What a Lovely War; repertory theatres; revues; Royal Court Theatre; Sandy Wilson’s musicals; theatre-going; Theatre Workshop; ticket prices; Waiting for Godot; Arnold Wesker. |
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Neil Hornick
Actor and Theatre-goer. Jean Anouilh; Arts Lab.; The Blue Lamp; Butlins; The Crazy Gang; critics; Jack Gelber; the Golders Green Hippodrome; interval music; Danny Kaye; The London Palladium; The Mousetrap; musicals; Oklahoma!; programmes; school plays; Shakespeare; theatre-going; well-made plays. |
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Pamela Howard
Scenographer and director Pamela Howard on her memories of training at Birmingham Rep; Relationship between directors and designers in the fifties; Watching the Berliner Ensemble in London; Watching Arnold Wesker's plays at The Belgrade Theatre; Jocelyn Herbert; Working at Birmingham Rep as a professional designer; Meeting Helene Weigal at the Old Vic, 1965; Impact of Berliner Ensemble; Changes in theatre design. |
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Peter Hudson
Singer and comedian, Variety. Agents; auditions; The Bill Shepherd Singers; Concert Artists Association; Tommy Cooper; digs; Equity; Cyril Fletcher; Frank Loesser; London Management; The Most Happy Fella; The Music Man; opera; Michael Parkinson; Pontin Circuit; television; touring; Max Wall; C. Daniel Warren; Mike and Bernie Winters. |
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Neville Hunnings
Theatre-goer. Alan Badel; amateur theatre; Arts Theatre Club; Bristol Old Vic; club theatres; Harry H. Corbett; Margot Fonteyn; French theatre; John Gielgud’s Hamlet; Robert Helpmann; history cycles; Stephen Joseph; Look Back in Anger; Tom Milne; Mother Courage; Old Vic at the New Theatre; Old Vic Theatre School; post-war growth in theatre, ballet and music; provincial theatre; Royal Court Theatre; Society for Theatre Research; Theatre in the Round; Theatre Workshop; David Thompson; verse drama; World Theatre Seasons. |
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Richard Iveson
Theatre-worker. Tommy Bradley; The Diary of Anne Frank; Frank Formby; lighting; nudity; recording equipment; special effects; ticket prices; variety. |
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Margaret Jackman
Actress and theatre worker. Against the Wind; The Dancing Years; Bernard Gallagher; The Glass Menagerie; Victor Graham; Harry Hanson; lighting; Love on the Never Never; People’s Theatre, Newcastle; props; realist plays; Renaissance Theatre Company; Muriel Rowan; Donald Sartain; scenery painting; Shoebox Theatre; sound; special effects (stage maroons); stage furniture loans; stage management; wardrobe. |
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Glenda Jackson
Actress. Arts funding; Peter Brook; censorship; Equity; Look Back in Anger; The Marat/Sade; new writing; Laurence Olivier; politics in theatre; RADA; repertory; RSC; Workers Revolutionary Party. |
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Ursula Jeffries
Theatregoer, on theatre in the 1960s; Waiting for Godot;
audience response to Beckett's plays; End of censorship; Radio drama. |
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Ann Jellicoe
Playwright. Censorship; Central School of Speech and Drama; Community Theatre; George Devine; early theatre experience; Endgame; The Knack; Look Back in Anger; Lord Chamberlain; The Observer writing competition; reading plays; Royal Court Theatre; Michel Saint-Denis; Shelley; The Sport of My Mad Mother; Sir Vincent Troubridge; Ken Tynan; Waiting for Godot; writers group; writing. |
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Joyce Jolley
Actress and theatre-goer. Christopher Fry; Hamlet; Robert Helpmann; lighting; Look Back in Anger; Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith; People’s Theatre, Nottingham; make-up; RSC; Paul Scofield; Shakespeare Memorial Theatre; Shakespeare; theatre training; verse speaking; Waiting For Godot; Donald Wolfit. |
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Julia Jones
Actress, playwright and theatre-goer. Alice in Wonderland; auditioning; Harry H. Corbett; digs; The Dutch Courtesan; lighting; Joan Littlewood; Look Back in Anger; Ewan MacColl; National Theatre; The Other Animals; RADA; repertory; Richard II; Ralph Richardson; RSC; David Scase; Shakespeare; Theatre Workshop; touring to Czechoslovakia and Sweden. |
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Julia Kellerman [Swan]
Actress; Pinter’s The Room. Audience; Bristol drama department; Dartington Hall; discussing the play; European theatre; foreign theatre festivals; Harold Hobson; Look Back in Anger; musical accompaniment; rented accommodation; set and background of the play; theatre going; Henry Woolf. |
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Leo Kersley
Dancer and Choreographer. Frederick Ashton; Lilian Baylis; Benjamin Britten; The Cherry Orchard; Joan Cross; Sid Field; Margot Fonteyn; John Gielgud; Robert Helpmann; Vivien Leigh; Music Hall; Nadia Nerina; Laurence Olivier; Ballet Rambert; Maria Rambert; Sadlers Wells Ballet; Antony Tudor; Ninette de Valois; Ralph Vaughan Williams's works. |
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Colette King
Director. Bill Gaskill; Central School of Speech and Drama; The Cherry Orchard; Dartington College of Arts; Alfred Emmett; Val Gielgud; Greek tragedies; improvisation; Joint Stock Theatre Company; National Theatre; Oxford University Drama Society; Questors Theatre; Saved; Stanislavski theory; Strawberry Hill College; teaching; Waiting for Godot. |
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Mark Kingston and Marigold Sharman
Actors. Accent; Alec Guinness; Binkie Beaumont; Samuel Beckett; Butlins; Chichester; Robert Helpman; LAMDA; Vivien Leigh; Look Back in Anger; The Norman Conquests; Old Vic; Laurence Olivier; John Osborne; repertory; special weeks; stardom; television; touring Australia; Peter Ustinov; Waiting For Godot; Webber Douglas School of Acting; Kenneth Williams. |
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Dr Christopher Knapper
Theatre-goer and amateur actor. Actor/manager/producers; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; At the Drop of A Hat; Audiences; Crewe amateur theatre; Concert Party; Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Frankie Howerd; Glenda Jackson; Great Hucklow; Lyceum; Mermaid Theatre; musicals; the National Theatre; Nottingham Playhouse; pantomime; L. du Garde Peach; Frank Randle; repertoire; repertory theatre; Sheffield theatres (The Crucible, The Empire, The Lyceum, The Playhouse); Sheffield University Drama; television; theatre-going; The Stirrings in Sheffield on a Saturday Night; World Theatre Seasons; Peter Ustinov; variety; West End shows. |
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Rosalind Knight
Actress. ’59 Theatre Company; ’69 Theatre Company; Brand; Michael Elliott; George Devine; Frank Dunlop; Look Back in Anger; Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre; masks; naturalistic plays; the Old Vic Theatre School; Peer Gynt; Litz Pisk; Platonov; Vanessa Redgrave; Royal Court Theatre; Michel Saint-Denis; the Young Vic. |
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Jack Kodell
Magician. Agents; audiences; Chaz Chase; digs; Grand Order of Water Rats; Sid and Max Harrison; Leslie MacDonnell; magic on ice; Mary Naylor; props; Marvyn Roy (Mr Electric); touring |
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Jack Kodell and Mary Naylor
Magician and musician; Variety. Agents (Cecil Buckingham, Foster’s Agency); George Black; Belita; bill matter; Blackpool theatres (North Pier, Opera House); Champagne on Ice; Kirby Wires; Dave Morris; Vic Oliver; Tesse O’Shea; Dick Richards; training birds. |
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Marion Konyot
Variety Performer, Variety. American variety; Hal Monty; Will Hammer; Robert Konyot; Pardon Our French (Hellzapoppin’); Terry’s Juveniles; theatre education; Lawrence Wright; Florenz Zeigfeld. |
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Anna Korwin
Actress. Arms and the Man; Peter Brook; Celestina; censorship; Chekhov’s plays; The Imaginary Invalid; Joan Littlewood; Look Back in Anger; modern drama; The Old Vic Theatre School; John Osborne’s plays; Harold Pinter’s plays; The Royal Court revolution; Michel Saint Denis; Shakespeare productions; theatre ensembles; Theatre Workshop. |
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Peter Lambert
Theatre Director. Acting style; Christopher Fry; Manchester Library Theatre; method acting; realism; rehearsal process; repertoire; The Royal Court Theatre, London; David Scace; television; theatre criticism. |
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Harry Landis
Actor, director. Accent; Bertolt Brecht; Richard Burton; censorship, Central School of Speech and Drama; Equity; The Kitchen; Joan Littlewood; Sean O’Casey; Harold Pinter, repertory theatre; touring; Unity Theatre; variety shows; Arnold Wesker; Ted Willis; West End theatre; working-class movement; writers. |
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David Lawrence
Actor and theatre-goer. Acting styles; Cecil Beaton; censorship; John Gielgud; Vivien Leigh; New Zealand; Old Vic; Sir Laurence Olivier; Terence Rattigan's plays; The Seagull; School for Scandal; Sybil Thorndike; touring theatre; Waiting for Godot. |
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Marjie Lawrence
Actress. Arden of Faversham; auditioning; The Bed Sitting Room; Birmingham theatres; Peter Brook; George Dare; Marianne Faithfull; The Flying Doctor; William Gaskill; Johnny Noble; Joan Littlewood; Ewan MacColl; Middle Age Spread; musicals; Paris International Festival; rehearsing; repertory; Royal Court Theatre; television; theatre training; Theatre Workshop; touring; US; variety. |
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Brian Legge
Theatre technician. Belgrade Theatre, Coventry; The Coliseum; Billy Cotton; Tyrone Guthrie; Howard and Wyndham; Peter Hall; Kiss Me, Kate; Moss Empires; musicals; Nottingham Playhouse; repertory theatres; Royal Festival Hall; Royal Shakespeare Company; Royalty Theatre, London; The Empire, Sheffield; stage lighting; Strand Electric; tours; Peter Ustinov; variety; variety managers; weekly rep; Julie Wilson |
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Gyorgy Lengyel
Theatre director. Bertold Brecht; Café Lipp; Jacques Copeau; correspondence; criticism; Dom Juan; Hamlet; Hungarian Revolution; Hungary; International Theatre Congress 1963; Jerzy Grotowski; John Gielgud; King Lear; Lawrence Olivier; Mr Puntila and his man Matti; Peter Brook; Prospero's Books; rivalry; Royal Shakespeare Company; Michel Saint-Denis; Suria Saint-Denis; Shakespeare; Soviet theatre; Stanislavski; The Ages of Man; Wars of the Roses. |
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John Levitt
Actor. Accents; backstage team; Caesar and Cleopatra; censorship; child licences; digs; Vivien Leigh; modern writers; musicals; Laurence Olivier; RADA; repertory; South Pacific; television; touring. |
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John Lewis Jones
Theatre-goer. Bertholt Brecht; The Caretaker; censorship; Noel Coward; The Entertainer; John Gielgud; Harold Hobson; Vivien Leigh; Look Back in Anger; musicals; National Theatre; Laurence Olivier; opera; Joan Plowright; Harold Pinter; Ralph Richardson; Terence Rattigan; Separate Tables; Peter Shaffer; A Taste of Honey; Kenneth Tynan; Variety; Waiting for Godot; Arnold Wesker; Donald Wolfit. |
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Maggie Little
Variety artiste. Blackpool theatre-scene; chaperones; digs; Franklin’s Musical Act; Sam Newsome; pantomime; Sherman Fisher Girls; Terry’s Juveniles; touring; Florence Whiteley’s Zio Angels; Lawrence Wright; Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth. |
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Ted Loveday
Scenery designer. Audiences; The Blue Lamp; Empire Theatre, Croydon; Enid Blyton; Brunskill and Loveday Ltd; John Brunskill Ltd; Bonar Colleano; Jack Hylton; impresarios; Wilfred Lawson; Loveday and Higson; the Old Vic.;John Osborne; Val Parnell; John Reith; television; scenery changes; scenery design; variety; Norman Wisdom. |
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Mary Lowe
Theatre-goer. The Duchess of Malfi; N.C. Hunter; intervals; Manchester Library Theatre; Manchester Opera House; Terence Rattigan; regional theatre; Harry Rutherford (artist); The Sleeping Prince; Stratford; theatre-going; three-act plays. |
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Gillian Lynne
Dancer and Choreographer. Acting; David Albery; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; BBC; Broadway; Rudolph Cartier; Cats; choreography; Cone Ripman School; Bernard Delfont; digs; Five Past Eight; Errol Flynne; Margot Fonteyn; John Gilpin; Pauline Grant; Robert Helpmann; jazz ballet; Molly Lake; Jacques Lecoq; Andrew Lloyd Webber; London Palladium; Leonide Massine; David Merrick; modern dance; Dudley Moore; musicals; opera; Peter and the Wolf; repertory; revue; Sadler’s Wells Ballet; Symphonic Variations; The Three-cornered Hat; Dame Ninette de Valois; variety |
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Julia MacDermot
Actress. Agent; auditioning; digs; dressers, early career; Rory MacDermot (husband); pre-war theatre; repertory; Salberg theatres; theatrical training; touring; Watford rep.; Wolverhampton rep. |
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Albert Mack
Theatre-goer and amateur actor. Variety. Billie Bennett; Bernard Bresslaw; Roy Castle; Harry Champion; Charles Dennis; The Empire, Nottingham; Will Fyffe; Horace Golding; Arthur Hindley; Jimmy James; Lupino Lane; Me and My Girl; monologues; Nottingham theatres; pantomimes; Scott Sanders; Wilson, Kepple and Betty; Brendan Woods. |
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Ian MacKillop
Audience member and English Professor. Amateur dramatics; Jean Anouilh; The Blue Lamp; Michael Croft; The Entertainer; involvement in the National Youth Theatre; Look Back in Anger; Laurence Olivier; the Royal Court Theatre; school productions; theatre-going in London and Stratford; Donald Woolfit's Shakespeare Company. |
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George and Mona Mason
Theatregoers: Vic Theatre Stoke from the 1960s to the present. |
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Marjery Mason
Actress. Acting in Working Men’s Clubs; The Actors’ Company; audiences; costumes; John Dexter; directors; Drama school; ENSA; Ian McKellen; Nora Clements Company; Edward Petherbridge; rehearsals; Flora Robson; setting up a theatre in Bangor; weekly rep; The Women’s Company. |
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Audrey Mathers
Daughter of theatre boarding house owner. Gus Aubury; Hylda Baker; Roy Castle; changing demands affecting theatre; chorus girls; Elsie Dibbs; digs; Kay Dotrice; Roy Dotrice; George Formby; home life; television; Theatre Royal, Castleford; variety. |
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Ian McDiarmid
Actor. Auditions; censorship; drama school; directing; Scottish theatre. |
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Bill McDonnell
Lecturer
at Sheffield University and community theatre worker. Recollections
of working with CAST during the 1970s. |
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Alexander McPherson
Designer. Frith Banbury; Bristol theatres; costume design; designing productions; kabuki drama; Music Hall; pantomime; Rapier Players; scenery; stage management; touring; Trelawney of the Wells; Victorian theatre; weekly rep. |
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Murray Melvin
Actor. 1950s; audience participation; John Bury; Edward II; Joan Littlewood; stage make-up; Richard II; stage lighting; Stratford East; Theatre Workshop |
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Roland Metcalfe
Chief electrician; lighting designer. Amateur theatre; Arts Council Funding; audiences; backstage training; Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham; Company X; Edinburgh Fringe Festival; The Everyman Group; King’s Lynn theatre-scene; King’s Lynn Festival; Ian Mullins; repertory; technological developments; Theatre in Education; theatre lighting; touring theatre. |
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Jean Miller
Actress. Bellain’s School of Dancing; costumes; films; Margot Fonteyn; Hermione Gingold; Michael Miller; orchestras; pantomime; salaries; Theatre Royal, Windsor. |
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Arthur Millie
Archivist, Salisbury Playhouse. Archival documents; A Streetcar Named Desire; audience; Christopher Biggins; censorship; Stephanie Cole; ENSA; interviews; Oh! What a Lovely War; programmes; repertory theatre; Leonard Rossiter; Reggie Salberg; Prunella Scales; Josephine Tewson; theatre conditions; theatre history; Waiting for Godot; Tim West; Kenneth Williams. |
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John Moffat
Actor; working with Noel Coward; repertory; psychology of traditional
pantomime; working with Tony Hancock; working with Binkie Beaumont
for HM Tennents; the Royal Court; acting with John Gielgud. |
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Philip Morgan
Talks of his father's extensive diary/scrapbook of theatre visits/personal
reviews of London and Bristol productions 1945-68, including Separate
Tables. |
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Grahame Morris
Ex-chairman of Sheffield Theatres on the rationale for their programming. |
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Brian Murphy
Actor. Audiences; auditioning; Clive Barker; Brendan Behan; John Bury; foreign reception; Lillian Harrison; Joan Littlewood; Oh! What a Lovely War; The Quare Fellow; Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; rehearsals; repertory; Shakespeare; television; theatre-going; Theatre Workshop; West End theatre. |
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Braham Murray
Director. 69 Theatre Company; actors; The Arts Council; Johanna Bryant; Century Theatre; the Lord Chamberlain; choreography; Michael Codron; The Connection; Tom Courtenay; Michael Elliot; Endgame; Lord Gardiner; Hang Down Your Head and Die; Terry Jones; Long Day's Journey into Night; Robert Lindsay; Loot; Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS); Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club (ETC); Mary Rose; Mia Farrow; Michael Meyer; Helen Mirren; musicals; The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester; set production; She Stoops to Conquer; sound design; David Wood; Casper Wrede; David Wright. |
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Mary Naylor
Singer and Musician, Variety. American artistes; The Band Wagon; Black and White Minstrel Show; Sam Browne; costumes; cruise ship entertainment; digs; ENSA; Henry Hall; Lena Horne; Jack Hylton; Nat Jackley; Jack Kodell; London Palladium; Archibald McIndoe’s burns patients (World War Two); Brian Micky; George Moon; Eric Morcambe; Theatre Royal, Nottingham; Tessie O’Shea; pantomime; radio; Royal Command Performance; salary; television; touring; Tommy Trinder; Ernie Wise; World War Two and theatre; Youth Takes a Bow. |
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Helen Neale
Actress and theatre-goer. Peggy Ashcroft; As You Like It; Richard Burton; Agatha Christie’s plays; critics; Frances Cuka; The Guildhall; John Gielgud; learning parts; Joan Plowright; Terence Rattigan; repertory; rehearsal structure; revue; Roots; Separate Tables; Shakespeare; Stratford; theatre-going; Kenneth Tynan; Peter Ustinov; West Side Story; women. |
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Perlita Neilson
Actress. Audiences; Frith Banbury; Bernard Shaw's plays; John Clements; Cicely Courtneidge; Dulcie Gray; modern plays; Oklahoma!; the Oxford Playhouse; repertory theatre; theatre-going. |
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Jean Newlove
Movement and dance specialist. Artistic policy; audiences; Fings Aint Wot They Used T’Be; Rudolf Laban; Joan Littlewood, Ewan MacColl; modern dance; Oh! What a Lovely War; The Other Animals; sets; Theatre Workshop, theories of movement; Uranium 235. |
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Peter Nichols
Playwright: theatregoing as child; critical reception; Bristol Old Vic; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg; the process of playwriting; censorship and the Lord Chamberlain; Privates on Parade; early Variety performances. |
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Patricia Noble
Script Reader for H.M Tennent. Enid Bagnold; Hugh ‘Binkie’ Beaumont; finance; first nights; John Gielgud; H.M Tennent’s; homosexuality; The Last Joke; The Lyric Hammersmith; My Fair Lady; David Noble; parties; John Perry; Terence Rattigan; Ralph Richardson; Ross; Royal Court Theatre; Daphne Rye; Separate Tables; television; Emlyn Williams. |
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Elsie Orme
Assistant Stage Manager and theatre-goer; audiences; children's plays; Colin George; London Theatre; The National Theatre; Geoffrey Ost; pot-boilers; Terrence Rattigan; repertory; Sheffield Theatre; star-quality; theatre going; Arnold Wesker; women's roles. |
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Kathy Ostler
Theatregoer. West End, Woolwich Empire and Repertory theatre 1945-68. |
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Mike Ostler
Chairman of the Society for Theatre Research, on working
as stage manager in Repertory theatre in the 1960s. |
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Daphne Oxenford
Actress. Audiences; auditions; digs; ENSA; Family Reunion; Joyce Grenfell; Listen With Mother; Manchester Library Theatre; matinees; musicals; repertory; revue; H.M. Tennent; theatre in the Round; touring (UK, Germany); Waiting for Godot; Nellie Wallace. |
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Eileen Page
Actress. Acting; buskers; censorship; Laurence Olivier; Look Back in Anger; repertory; role of the actor; Shakespeare; star-quality; Television and radio acting; theatre-going; women's roles. |
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Jocelyn Page
Actress Jocelyn Page on her memories of the Oxford University Dramatic Society; Working in Repertory Theatre; Memories of Peter Hall and John Barton; Censorship; John Osborne; Working at The Mermaid Theatre. |
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Derek Paget
Stage Manager. Lionel Bart; Peter Brook’s King Lear; directors; Dynamo; The Hostage; King Lear; King’s Head Theatre; lighting; Joan Littlewood; Oh! What a Lovely War; John Osborne; Howard Panter; Royal Court Theatre; stage management; Theatre Project Company; Theatre Workshop; touring; West End productions; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. |
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Muriel Pavlow
Stage and film actor, on working as a child actor with John Gielgud,
RSC, theatre and the war, working in ENSA, the crossover from theatre
to screen. |
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Harold Pinter's 'The Room' interviews...
In May 1957, the first stage play written by Harold Pinter was produced on a double bill over two nights in the Bristol University Drama Studio, previously a squash court in the Will's Memorial Building. Fifty years on, the Theatre Archive Project has undertaken a series of interviews investigating the background to that first performance (as well as the revivals in 1958 and 1960), talking to cast and backstage teams of both 'The Room' and the unknown accompanying piece 'The Rehearsal' by J.G. Severns. |
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Anne Piper
Novelist and playwright, on Look Back in Anger, George Devine,the
Royal Court in the 1950s and 1960s, Oklahoma!, Bertolt Brecht. |
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Alan Plater
Playwright. Accent; censorship; Peter Cheeseman; Close the Coalhouse Door; dialogue; farce; Alex Glasgow; Joan Littlewood; Look Back in Anger; music in plays; Music Hall; Joe Orton; John Osborne; Sandy Powell; Peggy Ramsay; The Smashing Day; See How They Run; Ted’s Cathedral; television; Theatre in the Round. |
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Dame Joan Plowright
Actress. A Taste of Honey; audiences; Chekhov’s plays; The Country Wife; creating characters and emotions; George Devine; The Entertainer; favourite roles; movement; Old Vic Theatre School; Sir Laurence Olivier; John Osborne; the National Theatre; Roots; Royal Court Theatre; Rudolf von Laban Art of Movement Studio; Kenneth Tynan; Orson Welles. |
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Brenda Plumley
Actress. Assistant Stage Manager; The Birthday Party; Children’s Theatre; improvisation; Look Back in Anger; musicals; John Osborne; Palace Theatre, Plymouth; Harold Pinter; props; Royal Court Theatre; Peter Slade; teaching; Theatre Centre; theatre in the round; touring; Tower Theatre, Canonbury; Brian Way; weekly rep. |
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Perry Pontac
Playwright. Absurdist drama; acting styles; Samuel Beckett; Alan Bennett; John Dexter; John Gielgud; Peter Hall; Anthony Hopkins; Joan Littlewood; the Old Vic.; the National Theatre; Laurence Olivier; Harold Pinter; Joan Plowright; Shakespeare; Kenneth Tynan; Waiting for Godot; A Woman Killed With Kindness. |
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Richard Pulford
Chief Executive of the Society of London Theatres/Theatre Management
Association, on theatre management in London. |
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Ian Purves
On Dundee Rep, lighting and set design, the impact of two fires in
the Oddfellows Hall in Dundee. |
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Ann Queensberry
Actress. Audience behaviour; backstage work; Edward Bond; censorship; George Devine; Ronald Duncan;Equity; William Gaskill; Ivor Novello; Look Back In Anger; Michael Mac Liammoir; Old Vic School; George Radford; repertory theatre; Royal Court Theatre; Jean Shepard; Dalton Trumbo. |
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Joy Ranger
Actress and theatre-goer. Back-stage; ballet; censorship; digs; Harrogate; Japanese theatre; Vivien Leigh; the National Theatre; Old Vic; RADA; repertory; repertoire; theatre-going; theatres; working in Japan; translations of plays; touring; Turn of the Screw. |
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Peter Rankin
Actor. Audiences; Lionel Bart; Brendan Behan; Peter Brook; Cinderella; critics; dialogue; Joan Littlewood; Ewan MacColl; Oh What a Lovely War; playwrights; Gerry Raffles; rehearsals; Royal Court Theatre; Shakespeare; theatre-going; Theatre Workshop; Kenneth Tynan. |
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Corin Redgrave
Actor. A Midsummer Night's Dream; Daniel Barenboim; George Devine; The Entertainer; Arthur Miller; modern cabaret; the National Theatre; Trevor Nunn; Laurence Olivier; Look Back in Anger; George Orwell; John Osborne; Royal Court Theatre, London. |
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Phyll and Allan Redgrave
Theatregoers 1945-68, on visiting the RSC, Wolverhampton and Birmingham
Rep. |
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Francis Reid
Lighting Designer. Actors; Aldeburgh Festival; Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT); Stanley Baxter; Jack Bradley; critics; directors; Carl Ebert; 1947 Edinburgh Festival; European Theatre; Flashpoint; freelancing; Glyndebourne; Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh; opera; pantomime; Pelleas et Melisande; repertory; Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts; Royal Court Theatre; Rules Club; stage management; stage management education; Strand Electric; technological advances; Tonbridge. |
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Tony Richards
Theatre-goer. Attercliffe Palace; Billy Liar; The Birthday Party; Crucible Theatre; The Entertainer; Empire Theatre, Sheffield; Harold Pinter; Inadmissible Evidence; Lori London and Edna Savage; Look Back In Anger; Lauri Lupino Lane; Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield; Me and My Girl; nudity; pantomime; Questors Theatre; repertory; Sheffield Playhouse; Stirrings in Sheffield on a Saturday Night; theatregoing; Twelfth Night; variety theatre. |
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Ian Richardson
Actor. 1964 RSC tour; accent; acting techniques; attitudes to television and cinema; audiences; Broadway; Peter Brook; Dame Judi Dench; Sir Alec Guinness; Sir Peter Hall; Marat/Sade; refreshments; repertory; rehearsals; Diana Rigg; RSC; Paul Scofield; Shakespeare; smoking; Stratford community; theatre tastes; Wilson Barrett Company. |
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Maroussia Richardson
Actress. Aldwych Theatre; Arts Theatre; ASM; Peggy Ashcroft; Peter Brook; casting; critics; Dangerous Corner; digs; Peter Hall; Look Back in Anger; Marat/Sade; music in Marat/Sade; Old Vic; Oxford Playhouse; props; Ian Richardson; Royal Variety Performance; RSC; Shakespeare; technical rehearsals; touring; understudying; variety; Worthing Rep. |
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Terence Rigby
Actor. Agents; Birmingham Rep.; censorship; Covent Garden; Equity; finding jobs; Fings Aint Wot They Used T'Be; working in Ireland; Keswick Century Theatre; Harold Pinter; The Homecoming; regional theatre; Royal Shakespeare Company; Shakespeare; Spotlight; television; working in London. |
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Norman Rimmell
Theatre-goer. A Taste of Honey; Brendan Behan; farce; Good King Charles’ Golden Days; Old Vic; opera; pantomime; Theatre Workshop; Unity Theatre; variety. |
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George Ritchie
Actor and teacher. Audiences; The Bofors Gun; critics; Alfred Emmet; Glasgow theatres; Mother Goose; Next Time I'll Sing to You; New Plays Festival; Questors Theatre; Renée Raymond; James Saunders; school and university productions; Theatre Workshop; touring; Variety. |
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Bill Ritson
Theatre-goer. The Birthday Party; Cambridge theatres; celebrity; censorship; Club Theatres; London theatres and productions; Royal Shakespeare Company; theatre-going; Variety; Waiting for Godot. |
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Lord Brian Rix
Actor-manager, Chairman of Drama at the Arts Council (1986-1993); Aldwych Farces; The Arts Council; audiences; censorship; John Chapman; Ray Cooney; early television; The English Stage Company; Equity; farce; Festival of Britain; Feydeau; Tony Hilton; holiday pay; Kenneth Horne (playwright); Philip Levene; Love in a Mist; Cecil Madden; Colin Morris; One for the Pot; Michael Pertwee; Reluctant Heroes; Six of Rix; Vernon Sylvaine; Whitehall Theatre; Donald Wolfit. |
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Neil Roberts
Professor of English Literature, University of Sheffield, theatregoer
in the 1960s, Peter Brook's King Lear (1962). |
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Billie Roper and Rex Roper
Variety Artistes. Accommodation; casinos; Rex Grey Dancers; The Hansa, Hamburg; the Knife Throwing Denvers; military shows; Edith Piaf; rope tricks; Sheriff Danny Arnold; touring; Two Gun Rix; Boy Rex; variety (UK); variety (Germany and France). |
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David Rose
Former head of Channel Four Drama. Guildhall School of Music and Drama; Kurt Jooss; live drama documentaries; relationship between theatre and early television; Sadler’s Wells Theatre Company; Stage Managing; television and theatre work in the seventies; Watergate Theatre Club; weekly rep; West End theatre in the late forties. |
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Donald Roy
Professor of Drama; theatregoer in the fifties and sixties. The American Musical; G.H. Elliott; Christopher Fry; Lucan and McShane; Lily Morris; Music Hall routines; post-war revival of Music Hall; premiere of Look Back in Anger; Ella Shields; Randolph Sutton; Harry Tate; Waiting for Godot; Nellie Wallace; West Side Story; Albert Whelan; Donald Wolfit. |
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Peter Sampson
Theatregoer and amateur dramatics actor, on acting and visiting the
theatre 1945-68, visiting productions of Pinter, Shaw and O'Casey. |
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Brian Sanders
Actor with the Donald Wolfit Shakespeare Company, recollections on
working with Wolfit, performing Shakespeare with ENSA, working in
repertory. |
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Ruth Serner
Bristol drama student and theatre worker, Harold Pinter's The Room. Bristol Drama department; Bristol theatres; course structure; The Duchess of Malfi; fellow students; Look Back in Anger; Harold Pinter plays; practical instruction; The Revuians; The Room; Glynne Wyckham. |
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James Severns
Playwright; Pinter’s The Room. Actors; American theatre-scene; audiences; The Balcony; Bristol Old Vic; Bristol University Drama Department; critics; Drama Society; Harold Hobson; John Lavender; lectures; Look Back in Anger; modern theatre; mystery plays; Harold Pinter; production; The Rehearsal; The Room; Peter O’Toole. |
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Michael Seymour
Stagehand and stage electrician at the Royal Court Theatre. Samuel Beckett; Brendan Behan; critics; The Entertainer; Robert Helpmann; Sean Kenny; Vivien Leigh; lighting; Look Back in Anger; Patrick McGee; Laurence Olivier; John Osborne; Joan Plowright; Royal Court Theatre; sets; work as a stagehand. |
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Christine Shellard
Theatre-goer and musicianon. Access to the theatre; cinema; issues in theatre; kitchen sink drama; London theatre; Look Back in Anger; My Fair Lady; radio; realism; regional theatre; television; theatre-going; Theatre Royal, Norwich. |
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Marcus Shellard
Theatre-goer. Accent; American musicals; Bertolt Brecht; censorship; cinema; class; Tom Courtenay; foreign drama; Joan Littlewood, Look Back in Anger; political background; revues; Theatre Workshop; Kenneth Tynan; university. |
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Barry Sheppard
Theatre Manager and theatre-goer. Arts Council; censorship; Civic Theatre, Chesterfield; Equity; The Kitchen; musicals; National Theatre; new writing; regional theatre; repertory; Ralph Richardson; Student ASMs; touring; Whirligig Theatre. |
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John Sheppard
Theatre-goer. Peter Brook’s production of Titus Andronicus; Peter Daubney’s World Theatre Seasons (late sixties, early seventies); The Deep Blue Sea; The Entertainer; European theatre; John Gielgud; Manchester Library Theatre; Manchester Library Theatre company; Manchester Opera House; media portrayal of actors; Laurence Olivier; London theatre-going; The Quare Fellow; Terrence Rattigan; Royal Shakespeare Company; David Scace; Separate Tables; Theatre Workshop; Kenneth Tynan; The Wars of the Roses (RSC 1963); women in twentieth century theatre. |
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Barbara Silcock
Theatregoer. 53 Group; actors; accent; A Taste of Honey; atmosphere; audience; backstage; censorship; The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield; family theatre-going; The Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, pantomime; Shakespeare’s plays; Sheffield theatres; television; The Stirrings in Sheffield on a Saturday Night; ticket price. |
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Ruth Silvestre
Actress. Auditions; concert artist; costume; dancing; Joan Diena; Flower Drum Song; Richard Kiley; Kismet; Man of La Mancha; Keith Michell; musicals; rehearsals; singing; sound projection; theatre-going; understudying. |
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David Simeon
Actor. Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham; censorship; comedy; drama schools; Cyril Fletcher; John Gielgud; The Guildhall School of Drama; Johnson over Jordan; The Method; John Osborne; pantomime; Harold Pinter; repertory; Derek Salberg; Reggie Salberg; Salisbury theatre; television; Dorothy Tutin; variety. |
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Michael Simpson
Director. Sir Felix Aylmer; Birmingham Rep.; Birmingham theatre-goers; Christmas shows; costume design; Peter Dews; Sir Barry Jackson; relationship between actors and administrative staff; repertoire; Salberg theatres; Saved; set design; theatre design; theatre directing. |
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Felicity Skelton
Theatre worker. Actors; Assistant Stage Manager's job; Birmingham Rep.; Ian McKellan; Laurence Olivier; modern writing; Prospect Productions; Salary structure; Terry Skelton; Touring in Ireland; working conditions. |
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Auriol Smith
Actress; Pinter’s The Room. Advertising; audience; casting; critics; Dartington Hall, Devon; Drama Department, Bristol University; The Dumb Waiter; Hampstead Theatre Club; humour; Harold Pinter; rehearsing; The Room; theatre-going; The Green Room Society; Henry Woolf. |
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Anthony (A.C.H.) Smith
Playwright. Acting; Samuel Beckett; Bristol Little Theatre; Bristol Old Vic theatre school; critics; T.S. Eliot; Endgame; Ernest Hemingway; influences upon his writing; Look Back in Anger; musicals; pantomime; Harold Pinter; programmes; Royal Shakespeare Company; Tom Stoppard; theatre-going; Universities’ Poetry; Waiting for Godot; Western Daily Press arts page; Charles Wood. |
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Josephine Smith
Wardrobe Mistress at Theatre Workshop. Actors; audiences; A Taste of Honey; budgets; John Bury; Harry H. Corbett; costume making; costume maintenance; critics; foreign appreciation; The Good Soldier Schweik; lifestyle; Joan Littlewood; Look Back in Anger; Ewan MacColl; productions; Gerry Raffles; Red Roses for Me; rehearsals; Theatre Royal, Stratford East; Theatre Workshop; touring; Kenneth Tynan; wages. |
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Victor Spinetti
Actor. Auditions; Brendan Behan; childhood; critics; drama school; Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be; The Hostage; Irving Theatre; John Lennon; Joan Littlewood; Oh What a Lovely War; Laurence Olivier; rehearsals; reviews; revue; South Pacific; Theatre Workshop; touring in America; Kenneth Tynan. |
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Andrew Staines
Actor, Assistant Stage Manager and theatre goer; Bertolt Brecht; Derby Playhouse; Doctor Who; Manchester Library Theatre; Northampton Repertory Theatre; repertory theatre; Sheffield Playhouse; Theatre Royal York; The Ghost Train; York Mystery Plays. |
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John Standing
Actor John Standing on memories of working in weekly Rep; Performing
in Peter Brook's 1955 production of Titus Andronicus; Working
at Bristol Old Vic, Haymarket, Chichester, West End; Touring; John
Osborne; Working in film and television; Working with Cary Grant;
Watching Peter Brook's Midsummer Night's Dream; Working with
Harold Pinter; Working on Broadway. |
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Maurice Stewart
Actor and Stage Manager. Audiences; Michael Bentall; Berliner Ensemble; Peter Daubeny; directing Shakespeare; Jack Hylton; Italia Conti Stage School; Look Back in Anger; new plays; Oklahoma!; Old Vic; repertory; revue; stratification of theatre; television; tours; Sam Wanamaker; World Theatre seasons. |
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Dudley Sutton
Actor. Brendan Behan; Lionel Bart; The Boys; censorship; Entertaining Mr Sloane; The Dutch Courtesan; The Good Soldier Svejk; The Hostage; Irish literature; language; The Leather Boys; Joan Littlewood; mime; Joe Orton; Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA); Royal Air Force (RAF); Theatre Workshop; A Whistle in the Dark; Youth Festival for International Peace and Friendship; You Won't Always Be on Top. |
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Cleo Sylvestre
Actress. Audiences; Bubble; Can’t Pay Won’t Pay; Crossroads; Frank Dunlop; Simon Gray; Alec Guinness; The National Health; National Theatre; Laurence Olivier; Wise Child. |
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Jane Thornton
Stage Manager. Alistair Sim; Black Comedy; changes to stage management practices; The Chinese Prime Minister; Come Spy With Me; David Collison; Ferrograph sound equipment; LAMDA; LAMDA new theatre; Number Ten; On the Level; Peter Bridge Productions; Repertory Players; Revox sound equipment; Robert Ornbo; scenery changing; stage management; Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds; Theatre Royal, Windsor; understudying; early video machines; West End runs. |
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Sue Thornton
Stage Manager. Alan Ayckbourn; Assistant Stage Manager; Ronnie Barker; censorship; Central School of Speech and Drama; Robert Chetwyn; Michael Codron; commercial stage management; Company Manager; Equity; Michael Frayn; Ipswich Arts Theatre (later the Wolsey Theatre); Betty Jumel; John Neville; Noises Off; Nottingham Playhouse; Nottingham Playhouse repertoire; The Real Inspector Hound; stage management; stage management hierarchy; Tom Stoppard; The Two of Us; understudying; variety. |
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Charles Vance
Actor and Producer. A Glass Menagerie; Cyril Cusack; Devonshire Park Theatre; In Praise of Love; Irish theatre; Anew McMaster; Memorial Theatre, Stratford; Arthur Miller; Harold Pinter; Terence Rattigan; repertory; The group of three; touring America. |
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| Variety Performers' interviews |
Interview list |
Anthony Verner
Actor. The Angry Deep; audiences; Binkie Beaumont; comedies; Italia Conti Stage School; Ray Cooney; critics; drama tuition; musicals; The Newcomers; Peter Pan; Terence Rattigan; rehearsing; repertory; ticket prices; television; Theatre of Comedy; theatre-going; Theatre Royal, Brighton; Windsor Theatre. |
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Alan Wallace
Stage Manager. Censorship; drawing room comedies; Equity; Repertory; scenery; Separate Tables; stage managers’ contracts; touring; West of England Theatre Company |
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Donal Walker
Actor and Director. Doris Buckley; Judi Dench; digs; drama school; The Grand Theatre, Halifax; Look Back in Anger; make-up; scenery; Separate Tables; stage management; Geoffrey Staines; theatre in education; touring; Toynbee Theatre, London; weekly repertory; working with schools; York Citizens’ Theatre Trust. |
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Brigid Wells
Theatre-goer and daughter of Susan Richmond, actress. Lindsay Anderson; diction; dramatic technique tuition; John Gielgud; Hermione Gingold; Stewart Granger; Hamlet; Henry IV; ingénues; Margaret Leighton; musicals; Oh Calcutta!; Paul Robeson’s Othello; Laurence Olivier; Oxford University drama; Ralph Richardson; Susan Richmond; Royal College of Opera; set design; Shakespeare; stage management; theatre-going; Kenneth Tynan; wartime theatre; Waiting for Godot; the Webber Douglas Academy. |
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Arnold Wesker
Playwright, born 1932, on his recollections of working in the theatre. |
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Timothy West
Actor, born 1934, on his recollections of theatre, 1945-68. |
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Valerie West
Stage Management, production, theatre administration. Lindsay Anderson; Alan Ayckbourn; ballet; British Council; choreographers (Frederick Ashton, John Cranko, Peter Wright); choreography; Lily White Boys; Kenneth MacMillan; National Youth Theatre; New Cranks; Old Vic Theatre; Royal Court Theatre; Sadler’s Wells Ballet; Sadler’s Wells Choreographic Group; Saved; Share My Lettuce; stage lighting; Valmouth; Ninette de Valois; touring (America, Communist Bloc, West Africa). |
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Graham Weston
Actor. Birmingham Rep.; Broadway; Warren Clarke; John Gielgud; Home; Ralph Richardson; Dandy Nichols; Sheffield Playhouse; David Storey; television; Mona Washbourne. |
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Alan White
Actor. Acting style; actors' mystique; actors' strike; Alan Aykbourne; audience reaction; Canterbury and Leatherhead; censorship; digs; Frank Matcham theatres; Arthur Miller; matinees; new writing; refreshments; repertory; technical changes; touring; Waiting for Godot; writers; Yvonne Arnaud theatre, Guildford. |
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Mavis Whyte
Performer with the Entertainments National Service Association on
working in Variety and Revue acts in the forties, fifties and sixties; memories of Bert Loman, Frank Fortescue; variety acts and performers. |
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Christopher Wilkinson
Actor 1963 to present day. On Tyrone Guthrie, the Sheffield
Playhouse, construction of the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. |
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Ronald Willett
Musician. Audiences; finance; Geoff Love; Gene Patton; orchestral role; rehearsals; Royal Theatre, Castleford; television; theatre; variety; variety acts |
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Connie Williams
Theatre-goer. A Taste of Honey; censorship; Look Back in Anger; modern writing; musicals; regional theatre; Sheffield theatres, The Crucible, the Lyceum and the Playhouse; theatre design; theatre-going. |
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Tudor Williams
Amateur Dramatics actor and theatregoer on acting in Journey's
End while in the RAF and working in Repertory. |
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Paul Williamson
Actor. Albert Finney; audience reaction; Birmingham Rep; casting; characterisation; costume arrangements; Equity; learning roles; musicals; public perception of actors; RADA; rehearsal structure; repertory; salary; Spotlight; stage managing; television acting; theatre-going; training and experience. |
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Stephen Wischhusen
Theatre worker. Donald Albery; audiences; The Boys in the Band; The Caretaker; The Intimate Theatre, Lyceum Theatre Crewe; Palmers Green; lighting; rep; Swansea theatre; theatre criticism; theatre going; theatre owners; tickets and reservations |
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Henry Woolf
Actor; Pinter's The Room. Audience; Bristol University; critics; Eileen Diss; John Lavender; Harold Pinter; production costs; producing plays; The Room; Duncan Ross; set; subsequent productions of The Room. |
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Audrey Worsley
Actress, Variety. Roy Barbour; George Black; Wilf Crew; ENSA; Get a Load of This; Charles Henry; Hoopla; Ali Khan and Rita Heyworth; pantomime; Variety; Arthur Worsley; Lawrence Wright’s On With The Show, Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth. |
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Michael Worsley
Son of Arthur Worsley and Audrey Hewitt, Variety. Animal Acts; digs; dressing rooms; Jimmy Gaye; Frank Ifield; Alan King; musicians; Bob Newman; Sunday Concerts; Sunday Night at the London Palladium; television; Vogelbein’s Bears; working practices; Arthur Worsley. |
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Barbara Young
Actress. Accent; Bradford Civic Theatre School; Bertold Brecht; censorship; European drama; folksongs; Frank Hauser; Johnny Noble; Rudolf Laban; Joan Littlewood; Ewan MacColl; The Method; playwrights; Stratford East; Theatre Workshop; touring; The Travellers; Uranium 235; Welsh audiences. |
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Jeremy Young
Actor. Acting styles; Birmingham Rep; Jack Bradley's Players; censorship; Harry Hanson Court Players; Harry Hanson; London theatre; new writing; regional theatre; Renaissance Theatre Company; television; theatrical digs; Tonbridge Rep; touring; touring Look Back in Anger 1958; West of England Theatre Company. |
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