دانلود کتاب Joan’s Book: The Autobiography of Joan Littlewood

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Title Page\nCopyright Page\nContents\nForeword\nAcknowledgements\nIntroduction\nPart 1 1914–45\n Chapter 1 Of my birth and parentage. Caroline Emily and Robert Francis, my grandparents, bring me up as their own. Of my Aunt Carrie, her brother Bob and sister Melinda, and Kate Daisy, my mother.\n Chapter 2 We move to Stockwell. The house we lived in. Kate Daisy’s suitors. Jim, her favourite, and his friends, the asphalters. Jim goes to War, so does Uncle Bob. They come through, without a scratch. I go to school.\n Chapter 3 Christmas is merry at Number 8. Jim brings his comical friend, Harry Watson. Jim’s rival, Alf Young, is home from Australia. A card game. Rivalry. A singsong. Tastes differ. Roll back the carpet. The evening ends on a randy note.\n Chapter 4 Caroline Emily tells her story with royal secrets. The usual bank holiday quarrel. Aunt Carrie is courting Harry Watson, but she takes me to the seaside for the first time. A mysterious lady visitor. Kate tells me she is going to marry.\n Chapter 5 Preparations for Kate’s wedding. Jim makes difficulties. Harry Watson and Carrie get married. Number 8 fills up with lodgers, casuals, a con-man, a child molester and a toff. The school takes us to see The Merchant of Venice. I learn Shylock’s part and ac\n Chapter 6 My grandparents take Kate to the Derby. Empire Day at school – a pledge. A war memorial unveiled at Stockwell. Jim’s on the dole, he’s arrested. The country in turmoil. The hunger marchers reach London. Jim lands a job in Cambridge. Kate is pregnant. The\n Chapter 7 I win a scholarship. The uniform is a problem. The school is a convent. There is a General Strike. Playacting at school. Aunt Carrie has TB. Her daughter Marie comes to us. At the Old Vic, see Hamlet and Macbeth with John Gielgud and produce Macbeth at sc\n Chapter 8 In Paris at the age of sixteen. Art and Nick’s arty friends. She wants me to be a painter, she wants to adopt me. Back in London, she takes me to a Chelsea studio and helps me with my painting. I leave Kate and Jim, go to live in Pimlico.\n Chapter 9 The horrors of RADA – a glimpse of Rudolf Laban’s technique and Bernard Shaw’s talent for acting. Dramas at the rooming house. A rôle as Cleopatra on radio. At a knitting works. Back to painting, return to Paris. Grave riots there. Escape and return to En\n Chapter 10 Walking north, collapse at Burton-on-Trent. Taken in by poor people. Sleep. They find an envelope, ‘Archie Harding, BBC Manchester’, in my pocket. Despatch the letter. By return, my fare and an offer: In Town Tonight, Saturday, Manchester. I am befriended\n Chapter 11 I am introduced to Jimmie Miller. For the first time, bear an Eisler song and the story of agitprop. See the work of ‘Theatre of Action’, find the rep work unsatisfying. The public go for me, so does Stan Laurel’s talent scout. Ernst Toller arrives to sup\n Chapter 12 Jimmie Miller’s parents and me. Collaboration with Jimmie. Our Expressionist production antagonises ‘Theatre of Action’. Moscow Academy of Cinema and Theatre offers us a place. We decide to continue trying to work in the UK. Live by writing a film treatme\n Chapter 13 University students join us: Gerry Raffles, Rosalie Williams, Graham Banks. A girl from Manchester Rep denounces me to the police. Last Edition is a wild success. The police close it down. Jimmie and I taken to court. Harold Lever helps us. We are fined a\n Chapter 14 We need premises, and move from pillar to post, finishing up in a crypt. Call-up diminishes the company. Love affairs break out. London being badly bombed, my family are in danger. ENSA? Not for me, the ban operates. Given freelance journalist work in Man\n Chapter 15 Marjorie finds a way to let me work. We write a series together. D.G. Bridson remembers me, gets me a job writing and directing an Overseas series. My grandparents leave London. My grandmother dies. Gerry and I become lovers. He is called up. Graham’s pla\n Chapter 16 The call for a second front. A day in Blackpool with Gerry before be starts work as a miner. His experiences in the pit. An accident – the amputation of his left leg threatened. He goes to stay with his mother and sister. The Normandy Landings. Gerry’s le\nPart 2 1945–52\n Chapter 17 I find a pearl and a lily. The War is over, the old bands reassemble. Pearl Turner and Lilian Booth join us. Then David Scase and Ruth Brandes from the BBC. Henceforth, we shall be known as ‘Theatre Workshop’. We celebrate with a ramble in Derbyshire. Jim\n Chapter 18 The pleasures of Kendal. Rehearsals in Tory party rooms. Mrs Fawcett’s good digs. Bill Davidson, aircraft designer on holiday, designs and makes our first set. The wood given to us by Mr Barchard of Hull. Kerstin Lind, from Sweden, joins us. The Labour Pa\n Chapter 19 The Lake District not viable financially. Gerry becomes manager. Will Arts Council assist us? Success at Wigan Little Theatre. Gerry makes heavy demands on the town’s electricity. We prepare Lorca’s Don Perlimplín. Dr Luis Meana, who was in Lorca’s compan\n Chapter 20 An unsatisfactory meeting. A Blackpool date cancelled. We do well, thanks to James Ford, at Wallasey. Liverpool at Christmas. Jimmie’s play, Uranium 235, progressing. Professor Rotblat helping. Three shows a day at the David Lewis Settlement. The kids, mo\n Chapter 21 Short version of Uranium 235 launched at the People’s, Newcastle. The young audience enthusiastic. Gerry tries the theatre barons and secures our first big date, the Empire, Dewsbury. He invites his father. On to Leeds, sharing the digs with a donkey. Mik\n Chapter 22 Time for voice classes at Nelson Illingworth’s bungalow, once owned by Ellen Terry. Theatre Newsletter befriends us. Our Time praises us. The debts are mounting. A young woman gives us a hundred pounds, says she can raise all the money we need. The Pennym\n Chapter 23 Gerry’s lion cub. Au revoir, Ormesby. Pearl is going home to have her baby. Isla Gledbill will replace her. Margaret Greenwood, Edna Carson, Camel, John Blanshard and an exciting young writer, Benedict Ellis, join us. Freddie Piffard becomes our fourth di\n Chapter 24 We play London for the first time. A group of MPs attend the show and a delegation from Arts Council. We are invited to lunch at the House of Commons. Arts Council finally turn us down. Tom Driberg likes us. At Ormesby, rehearsals for Jimmie’s updated Lys\n Chapter 25 The letters which passed between Gerry, Howard and me while they were away on a ‘Combined Services Entertainment’ tour of Germany in 1947.\n Chapter 26 Gerry and I. To Paris. The shadow of the War. Jimmie is free. Revisit my favourite places, see Jouvet’s École des Femmes, Jean-Louis Barrault’s Hamlet. Back in UK, Mike, Gerry, Kerstin try for dates. Felixstowe – the Isle of Man – and a very eccentric hos\n Chapter 27 The troubles in Palestine. We witness two outbreaks of anti-Semitism in Manchester. We wish to show people what we have seen and find a vehicle. The play Professor Mamlock will serve. We can parallel what we have seen with events in Germany. The Lord Cham\n Chapter 28 Christmas. Michel St Denis offers us a room at the Old Vic. The company splits up. Gerry and Joan head north. A room with Mrs Staunton at Ardwick Green. Howard and Kerstin follow. The company will wither without a base. Gerry campaigns for the David Lewis\n Chapter 29 Jimmie’s new play, The Other Animals. Opinion divided. Tyrone Guthrie, Bill Davidson, Gerry (just returned) – against. An old admirer lets us have a house. We christen it the Parrot House, as the faithfuls reassemble, taking part-time jobs. Camel retrieve\n Chapter 30 Gerry en route for Czechoslovakia. His adventures in Prague, trying for a tour. He is lent his fare to Stockholm, finds a hostel there and all-night work, dishwashing. Swedish contacts unforthcoming, but the Czech tour is on. The company play Prague, a wa\n Chapter 31 Touring Czechoslovakia, following in Schwejk’s footsteps. The feasting, the fraternisation, the speeches. A Moravian production of Twelfth Night. Our hard-worked company looked down on by some Czech actors because we join in the manual work. Zoë Tauferova\n Chapter 32 Through Poland – the Russian officer. A letter from Zoë. Gerry’s note left on the ferryboat. Having visited Warsaw, he would like to live there. Kerstin meets us at Trelleborg. The Swedish Co-op have given us five thousand kronor, with which she has booke\n Chapter 33 Gerry and Joan survey All Saints. No official welcome on our return from the tours. An old house lent to us. The company move in, take part-time jobs, salvage lighting equipment from a crashed plane. Our life in the old house, now named the Schloss, rehea\n Chapter 34 To Wales on New Year’s Eve 1950. The truck breaks down. We spend the night in it. Hitchhike to Fleur, no lorry, too late to play anyway. The Welsh tour with Uranium 235; hounded by the police. Harry Greene joins us at Rhymney and comes with us on our seco\n Chapter 35 Our summer school at Appleby. A talented young man among the students – Frank Elliott. His impressions of ‘The Workshop’. Ask him to join us. He attends a rehearsal in Edinburgh – overwhelmed when he is asked to participate that very night. Beatrice Tanak\n Chapter 36 Enter Harry Corbett – then Avis Bunnage. Tour of the North-East. Norman and Janey Buchan book St Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow, for Uranium 235. Jimmie refuses to restage it. I tackle it in a Manchester basement. Gerry teaches Harry Greene to drive the truck. Sa\nPart 3 1953–63\n Chapter 37 We move from Glasgow to London E15. The state of Theatre Royal. The generosity of May and Bert Scagnelli. Gerry asks West Ham to accept us as their Civic Theatre. They cannot. We live and produce plays on the barest minimum. The Safety Curtain falls durin\n Chapter 38 The Travellers in Edinburgh. Obraztsov plays E15: An Enemy of the People. George Cooper’s Schwejk transfers to the Duke of York’s, our Arden of Faversham and Volpone to the International Festival of Theatre, Paris. George’s Volpone proclaimed the finest p\n Chapter 39 Brendan Beban and The Quare Fellow. His fare sent to Dublin twice; be drinks it. I shape the script without him. Richard Harris joins us. Paris wants Schwejk; this time Max Shaw plays it. The Quare Fellow transfers to the Comedy. Gerry and Joan visit Edua\n Chapter 40 A slow train to Moscow. Disappointments and delights. A visit to Oklopkov’s Hamlet. A poor young painter. Curry powder for Guy Burgess. Gerry trying for a Bulgarian tour. A tea party with Obraztsov. See The Fountains of Bakhchisaray by Zakbarov. Approache\n Chapter 41 A script from Henry Chapman, You Won’t Always Be On Top. Unproducible, no plot, shape, no sex-an’-violence, but some quaint turns of phrase. The enjoyment of making possible the impossible. We do it. The show goes on. Visits from plain-clothes cops. I’m i\n Chapter 42 The Celestina. David (Jimmie) Booth found in our bar, plays Semaronio. Two detectives invade our rehearsal and hand me a summons for ‘unlawfully presenting parts of a new stage play not allowed by the Lord Chamberlain’, You Won’t Always Be On Top. Henry C\n Chapter 43 G.B.S., J.P. Sartre and Paul Green, American playwright, almost unknown, certainly undervalued; an inimitable performance by John Bay in Unto Such Glory, one of our best productions. La Putain Respectueuse, with Yootha Joyce, incomparable. A quick trip to\n Chapter 44 Brendan in London for the launch of Borstal Boy. The first hostage of our time killed in Cyprus. There is a play in it. B.B. says he will write it, in Ireland, and goes. The Royal Court try to take over Shelagh. Gerry tries Arts Council for a bursary for\n Chapter 45 The Hostage notices. Brendan changes a line in one of his songs. And what about the Lord Chamberlain? We try for a war of the theatres with the Royal Court. They won’t play.\n Chapter 46 Another packet on my desk. David Booth opens it. It’s the genuine stuff. Frank Norman, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be. Donald Albery takes Honey to Wyndham’s. Arts Council asks what we’re making out of it. Lionel Bart falls for Fings. The order of scenes\n Chapter 47 Two strangers at E15. A script from Wolf Mankowitz – a package production? Gerry needs one. Next day, conventional auditions for small parts. Victor Spinetti’s name mentioned, be is working in a nightclub. I go to see him and am very impressed. Wolf won’t\n Chapter 48 Vic’s nightclub won’t release him for Paris. We close ranks and get by. Bob Grant wins an acting award. Wolf Mankowitz backs Sbelagb’s second play. We produce Sparrers Can’t Sing by Steve Lewis. The play does well. Brendan is said to be writing Richard’s\n Chapter 49 The Hostage is opening in New York. Gerry and I go ahead to contradict the bad press Brendan has been getting. A curious radio interview. The company and Brendan arrive, he is mobbed by press men. The backers worry about our accents. We play a joke on the\n Chapter 50 Study Danton’s Death by Büchner, which we cannot afford. We take Sparrers Can’t Sing to East Berlin. Harry Corbett directs an Alun Owen play while we are away. John Junkin falls for They Might be Giants by Jim Goldman. Hal Prince finances it. The author a\nPart 4 1963–74\n Chapter 51 Senegal. Exploring Dakar. The French colonials. The museum of the slave trade. On to Lagos. No Wole. No public transport. A lift through dangerous territory – a makeshift bed. The next day searching Ibadan for Wole and better quarters – witch-doctors – ju\n Chapter 52 Ibadan – its hospital. Village carvings, the god of peace – a crocodile pet – a village festival. Removal to my new home – the snake-charmer. Work on film treatment of The Lion and the Jewel. Wole turns up. A hundred-year-old chieftain, the Lion of Wole’s\n Chapter 53 Icy London in the small hours – everyone away. The architect? He never sleeps – meet up in an all night café. Toothache treated. Saltzman visited. Terrible news of Gerry. To Salisbury hospital. He is on danger list and worrying about Brendan. To Dublin, t\n Chapter 54 With the CND, I attempt instant direction at the Albert Hall. An offer from Peter Hall. Contretemps. Zero Mostel – a Falstaff? And Un-American? On a delegation to Cuba but quit in Prague, after days of delay and no lights on the plane. Meet Maurice Goldsm\n Chapter 55 Setting up the Sparrers film. A base in Cable Street. Disagreement at outset – my chosen team edged out – the wrong cameraman – my Nagra sound recorder out. A party for the crew, actors and locals – the Krays turn up. Shooting goes badly – the cameraman s\n Chapter 56 Christmas in Casablanca. To Marrakech in an old, hired banger. The Casbah and belly dancers with red noses. Beyond the walls, the Berber entertainers. The remains of a harem. Among the sands, a forgotten Jewish tribe. Our lives in danger – to the desert –\n Chapter 57 E15 needs a season of plays. Read a Vanbrugh and Genet, neither suitable. Gerry plays me a tape, Songs of the First World War. He wants them used in a play. Two writers have already tried and failed, a third is working on it. Jacques Tati attends private\n Chapter 58 BBC Singers dislike changes. Technical requirements are many. Mornings removing schmaltz from songs, afternoons cutting film. BBC singers leave. John Gower (baritone), Colin Kemball (tenor) stay. Gerry finds an army sergeant to drill actors. His language\n Chapter 59 Sparrers film’s East End première – I don’t go – puzzling over presenting the Irish in the 1914–18 War. Company have mixed reaction to film. Good idea for church scene and title, Oh What A Lovely War. Henri Barbusse book gives me an ending for it. First r\n Chapter 60 Extra-mural work with Nottinghamshire miners. With students at Malmö University. Lou Sherman’s project for the Lea Valley. Mine for a Fun Palace by the Thames designed by Cedric Price. The idea and the design described. Gordon Pask forms a Cybernetics Com\n Chapter 61 1964. Death of Brendan Beban. The LCC cannot accommodate the Fun Palace by the Thames, suggest Mill Meads at Stratford, E15. A plea for the F.P. filmed, a model made. Thomas North, Borough Architect of West Ham, against us. Jeremy Isaacs helps us. We are\n Chapter 62 To Hammamet, Tunisia, with Gerry, to teach as part of an International Summer School at Le Centre Culturel. We train Arabs and French students – a telegram from Dick Bowdler. Still no decision from County Hall – need cash. Interrupt work to return to Lond\n Chapter 63 Gerry visits Nigeria – proposes filming The Lion and the Jewel in Tunisia. My ‘commercial’ production, a non-existent script. The composer’s wild suggestions – a mixed cast – the choreographer and George Cooper. I quit. My successor fares badly. Newbam ag\n Chapter 64 Tunisia wants publicity for Le Centre. A well-known English critic comes to see our work, says that England shouldn’t let us go. One more try in London. The Millwall Tenants’ Association give us their blessing, but we have nowhere to go. The Evening Stand\nAppendix 1\n Theatre Union Study Course, 1940. Each company member should prepare a paper or photomontage on their chosen subject.\nAppendix 2\n The Grosvenor Square Pesbyterian Church and School at All Saints, Manchester.\nAppendix 3\n ‘Umeni Lidu – Art for the People’ by Gerry Raffles, General Manager of Theatre Workshop, who have just completed a highly successful tour of Czechoslovakia.\nAppendix 4\n Rudolf Laban\nAppendix 5\n In the autumn of 1948, Theatre Workshop toured sixteen towns in Czechoslovakia, playing to packed houses in the largest theatres. They took with them plays by Molière, Chekhov and Lorca, and two new English plays by Ewan MacColl (Jimmie Miller). After C\nIndex