Interviews

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.

Interviewed by Steve Nicholson on 09/12/07

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SN: OK, so George, if we can go back to your first early encounters with theatre then, even before you became a performer yourself. What would be your early memories of theatre, growing up in Glasgow?

GR: Well, as a child I didn’t go to much theatre as such – I mean straight theatre. I would go to music hall and pantomime and so on, because my aunt was involved as a chorus girl then, in various shows in and around… in Scotland mainly, but also she would go down to London. And she eventually became the famous Goosie Lyle, because she performed as the goose in pantomime for various famous comedians.
But my memory of theatre as such, before I went to university, there wasn’t very much. I do remember, with some pleasure, Uranium 235, which was when the Theatre Workshop was touring in Scotland. And they were then I think, sleeping on the beach, because they didn’t have enough money for lodgings. And that was doubled with Twelfth Night, and was touring the halls of the various towns. I saw it in Hamilton in fact.

SN: That would have been with school party that you went or…?

GR: Yes, yes. And that was Ewan MacColl, and of course that whole group – what is her name?

SN: Joan Littlewood.

GR: Joan Littlewood, yes, she was there, yes.

SN: Quite a daring thing for school to go to. I mean quite a…

GR: Yes, I mean my… I suppose… I can’t remember whether it was part of that, but the Head of Art at the school, which was a remarkable school I went to, which was in a sense a secondary comprehensive, but also very academic. Scottish schools were rather unusual in the sense that they were… very academic at one level and much more practical at the other, and yet with a huge history of academe really. But the Head of Arts there was married to quite a well known Scottish actress, and he was a theatre man through and through. And each year we did Shakespeare, which he directed. But he also got me involved in various little theatres in the area as a child actor. So whether he was involved in persuading the school to go along to Uranium 235, or whether I went along on my own, I don’t remember. But I remember seeing both these shows. They were playing, I think night about, Twelfth Night and Uranium 235.

SN: Do you think the impact of them was to do with the content of the play, or was there something about the way they performed?

GR: I really was too young to be aware of that. I really don’t… I don’t know. All I know is that it impressed me a great deal. I remember smelling the feet of the actors [which were] obviously in pretty bad state in Twelfth Night. [laughs] Airing their feet in the front row, yes over the ledge of the platform. No, but no I… it was… And Ewan MacColl was a wonderful performer. His voice, his singing was superb, I remember that. And he wrote or devised Uranium 235.

SN: Would he have been in Twelfth Night? Would he have been singing in Twelfth Night?

GR: I don’t think so. I don’t remember that. I mean, my memory is very patchy for that period. What else, theatre…? Well, I acted in various things like The Browning Version and so on, with little theatres in the area. And I acted, of course, in Shakespeare, and sang in Gilbert and Sullivan for my sins, and also directed my own productions.

SN: At school?

GR: Yes, and performed The Lady of Shallot and so on. It must have been awful really. But I was encouraged - or not discouraged - to do these things. And that was going on all the time really. And the former pupils had their own organisation. And they had a wonderful variety show every year which they did. Yes.

SN: In terms of the music hall and variety things that you went to, would that be with friends or with family?

GR: I think I went with family. And I can’t remember to be honest whether that continued, whether I was doing quite a lot of that when I went to university. I can’t remember that. I think probably it was. But then we’re talking about the early fifties. It was a very strong and rich tradition of Scottish variety theatre. And some were family based. I mean… I can’t remember the names actually, but there were famous families – famous in Glasgow – who performed in their own shows every year in the big professional theatres like the Royal and the Empire and so on. And there was also the Citizen’s Theatre, then going quite strongly. And I remember seeing quite a few productions there.

SN: Unity Theatre, did you ever go…?

GR: Don’t remember Unity. I don’t remember the name in that respect, no. But the Citizen’s I do remember. And I saw some quite… I mean, I can’t remember in any real detail, but I remember being impressed and enjoying very much what I saw there.

SN: And the variety that you went to, was that risqué stuff?

GR: Yes, some of it was, yes, yes. But as I say, I’m not sure that I saw that as a child or as a student. I can’t remember that. And I don’t remember very much about it, except that it was quite a heady experience to attend one of these shows, because the audience was very much involved. And they loved these performers, a very strong interaction between performer and audience certainly. Later on I suppose I saw various touring companies with… the time when Gielgud was touring with various things, and I remember seeing… I think… yes, The Cherry Orchard with Gielgud – I think I’m right in saying that – and various things of that kind. Again, when I was… later I think when I was a student, it was in the fifties, yes, the early fifties.

SN: So where… you went to university in what, 19…?

GR: Well I was at… the year that I joined that little fit-up company we’ll talk about in a moment was ’56. And that was the year I’d failed my final exams – or one exam, because it was a group of exams we had to get through. So I’d have been… ’5[3] I suppose I went up. Yes, ’5[3], 195[3].

SN: And that was which university?

GR: Glasgow University.

SN: Right.

GR: Yes, University of Glasgow, yes.

SN: And that was fairly normal, then, to go to the local university. I mean, you didn’t think of going further away?

GR: I wasn’t that keen as I remember, and my interest then was to be an actor – to become an actor. And therefore university was a sort of… something to keep me going, you know. That was the idea anyway.

SN: So did you carry on doing theatre while you were at university?

GR: Yes, yes. I performed in the yearly university production, which was usually directed by either an actor, quite a well known actor in the area – Ian Cuthbertson for instance was one of the directors – or else directed by one of the lecturers of the Academy for… the drama academy, or Scottish Drama Academy.

SN: And they were productions that anyone, any student could audition for?

GR: Yes, I mean there was GUDS – the Glasgow University Dramatic Society – they had their own committee and so on. Yes, and I mean I think perhaps… well, it’s when I played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice that I began to feel that I had some skill and… Well, I’d acted a lot at school of course, but I began to feel a certain power as an actor. I was well… I mean, the critics chose me - you know, the Glasgow newspapers and so on - chose me as Performer of the Year, and this sort of stuff, so I got a certain kudos from that. Then I played in Love for Love, and so on. So I did quite a lot then, yes.

SN: And your family would not have… were not opposed to you being involved as an actor?

GR: Not at all. No, never at any point, no. And as it happened I eventually… I was being pushed to become an actor, not only by my aunt later, but by the head of the arts department at the school, who really wanted me to go on to become a professional actor. But I resisted that I think, I’m not quite sure why. But although I was successful as an amateur actor, I was very nervous even then. I still am as an actor. So it wasn’t as if I shone in my role as an actor, I found it quite heavy going, nerve-wise if you like.

SN: So you never considered drama school?

GR: I did at one time, on the strength I think of – I don’t know – of a particularly well reviewed performance. I got an interview with the head of the drama college, but he wasn’t… there was nothing he could do. And I was still at university, as I remember, then. No, whatever happened I didn’t take that… I didn’t push my way as one would have had to do. I don’t suppose I had a burning ambition really by then. And eventually I taught drama and became involved in drama in other ways. And then went down to London and joined the Questors Theatre after my National Service, and got opportunities to do all sorts of wonderful things – for me wonderful things there. And even then I suppose I was hoping that I might be able to get somewhere, but it wasn’t to be. And I don’t suppose… I think that it was right that it didn’t happen, to be honest, because though I had some skill and talent as an actor, I don’t think I was temperamentally suited to it really.

SN: So in 1956 at the end of university…

GR: Yes, well I was in the position where it was a modular degree. I was academically well thought of, but spent most of my months and years at university working on theatre.

SN: Because you’d been studying maths, is that right?

GR: Well maths was one of the modules.

SN: Right.

GR: And I was a mathematician at school. I was known… a medallist and such for maths, and so it was one of my best subjects. But the class was nine o’clock in the morning, and I found that quite difficult [laughs] So… and I just didn’t turn up to lessons… to lectures. And so of all the subjects to fail that was a little unusual, because it was my best, or had been my best subject. So I was obviously going to get it, and when I got it I would get my degree. But I had to re-sit it, and it was in that summer… I had to re-sit in September, and it was that summer that I went down to London.
I can’t remember the purpose of it. Just to get away and… and it was there that my aunt – without telling me, I was staying in this unusual setup with a friend of hers – and without my knowing it she applied through The Stage on my behalf. It was all hand-written stuff of course, as a junior actor if you like in a touring fit-up company. And without auditioning me or anything they accepted me. And I arrived at the station in Thaxted, to be greeted by the company. My first meeting with [them], you know.

SN: Were you replacing someone?

GR: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’m not sure. Probably. There was this young girl who arrived too, and so it may have been a revival of the company in some way or another, because they would come from all over the place. One of the main actors who obviously worked with Renee Raymond – the director and leading actress of the company, and company manager too – he was working in a sweetie factory or something. And she managed to persuade him to leave that and come and join them. So there was all that. And later on, years later, I bumped into – well I didn’t actually bump into, I’m not sure that I actually met her – but there she was this Renée Raymond as she called herself, behind a counter in R.S. McColls somewhere… I can’t even remember where it was. So there was… they were in and out of the profession.

Interview continued...

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