"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall "Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman "A prominent Liberal Democrat blogger" - BBC Radio 4 Today; "One of my favourite blogs" - Stumbling and Mumbling; "Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife
Joan Littlewood directed only one film, Sparrows Can't Sing. It was based on the play Sparrers Can't Sing, which was written by Stephen Lewis (better known later as Blakey off of On the Buses) and staged by her at Stratford East.
Here two cast members, Barbara Windsor and Murray Melvin, remember the making of the film and Littlewood's approach in general. Barbara Windsor is in sparkling form.
As I posted this video on Liberal England about 10 years ago, I'm adding another one with Murray Melvin . It's very good, but I'll admit it's here mainly because of the still photo of Joan Littlewood and Stephen Lewis that appears early on.
For another appreciation of Joan Littlweood, try Sheila Hancock.
I may have got the idea that Matron is too fond of gin from Sheila Hancock, who played Miss Hannigan that way (to Stratford Johns' Daddy Warbucks) in the first London production of Annie.
Wednesday
I was sad to see my fellow hereditary peers expelled from the Lords. I am not affected by the recent change in the law because mine is a Rutland peerage and thus I am guaranteed lifelong membership of the House under the provisions of the Treaty of Oakham. I forget quite when it was signed or who signed it, but I have a copy – indeed the only copy known to exist – safely locked away in the Library here at Bonkers Hall.
And so to my Home for Well-Behaved Orphans, where excitement is running high at the prospect of Friday’s Beltane bonfire. How sweet their voices sound as they practise their songs! Though I have to say that in my young day folk songs were about chaps setting off on May mornings, with the occasional drowned sailor thrown in.
I don’t know if the Wise Woman of Wing has been drinking gin with Matron again, bringing some of her lore with her, but the words the little inmates sing are alarming: The Unquiet Grave would count as light relief in their company.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Before Yes Minister made him famous in 1980, Nigel Hawthorne served a long apprenticeship in the acting profession. But I had not grasped till recently just how long that apprenticeship had been.
If you click on the arrow above, you will see him in a scene from Going Straight, the short-lived sitcom that followed Norman Stanley Fletcher after his release from the Slade Prison of Porridge.
That scene dates from 1978, but he had a bit part in an episode of Dad's Army as early as 1969. I recall a story that someone had gone to David Croft on Hawthorne's behalf, saying he was a very good actor who was getting many parts and asking if Croft could offer him something. Croft did, though as I recall Hawthorne doesn't really convince as a lorry driver.
But I've now know that Hawthorne's apprenticeship stretched right back to the start of the Fifties, and two of this blog's heroines helped me discover this.
Here's Sheila Hancock writing in The Two of Us: My Life with John Thaw:
I was thrilled to be so near London where someone might see me. I was playing quite a good role but whenever I was in danger of getting a laugh, Frank would intervene with, "No, don't laugh – poor soul – she went to the RADA, you know" (pronounced radar by Frank). "No perlease, perlease have some respect."
Nigel Hawthorne and I watched in awe as he jettisoned the script and went off into wild fantasies of his own It was one of Frank's frequent periods in the theatrical wilderness and no one important came near us, but supporting this anguished man gave us a friend for life.
With the help of the British Newspaper Archive I can tell you that this all took place in 1956.
Two years earlier, Hawthorne had been in the supporting cast when Freda Jackson returned to her alma mater, the Theatre Royal, Northampton, to play Marguerite Gautier in The Lady of the Camelias. He was in the repertory company there in 1954 and 1955.
He was acting with the company at the Pavilion Gardens, Buxton, as early as 1951. Hawthorne had first gone on the stage in South Africa in 1950, and was to alternate between Britain and South Africa for a few years without finding much in success in either.
And we have a part for a third heroine of the blog. Because, just as Sheila Hancock does, Hawthorne said he owed his career to Joan Littlewood.
Here's Markland Taylor reviewing Hawthorne's Straight Face, The Autobiography, which was published just after his death, in Variety:
Hawthorne’s luck changed magnificently when he downed six bottles of Guinness before auditioning for a role in a production of Littlewood’s hit
Oh! What a Lovely War planned for a tour of England and Europe, and was cast.
This led to his invaluable relationship with Littlewood and his career blossomed, leading to highly rewarding work on stage, screen and television.
This was in 1964, so Hawthorne still had 16 years to wait before be became famous overnight. This is a story about talent and persistence, but it may ultimately be one about having the right mentor.
The chief joy of One Over the Eight for me was meeting and becoming friends with the writer of the show, Peter Cook, and Kenneth [Williams], the maverick star.
But she didn't feel London was really swinging yet and neither did Kenneth Williams:
One night after the show, when I gave him a lift back to his chaste flat on the back of my Lambretta, he waved his furled umbrella at Eros as we circled Piccadilly Circus crying "Where is it? Where is it all happening? Where are all these orgies? Why haven't we been asked?"
Peter Cook wasn't the only writer who contributed to One Over the Eight: The Stage lists John Mortimer, Lionel Bart, N.F. Simpson and John Bird among the other contributors.
But the reason for this post is that Sheila Hancock reveals that Kenneth Williams' understudy was Ken Loach and so gives us our Trivial Fact of the Day.
In this era, Loach was also involved with Leicester's The Living Theatre. His first screen credits as a director came on television in 1964.
In this British Film Institute video Sylvester McCoy, Sheila Hancock and members of it production team discuss the 1988 Doctor Who story The Happiness Patrol.
My Doctor was Jon Pertwee, though in those days the Brigadier and Roger Delgado were a large part of the success of the show. These days I'm not a great Doctor Who fan, but I am a Sheila Hancock fan.
Between 1962, when he first appeared as Charlie Barlow in Z-Cars, and 1976, when he played the character for the last time in Second Verdict, Britain's most famous television policeman was Stratford Johns.
That baton was then taken on by John Thaw, who had begun playing Jack Regan in The Sweeney in 1975. He continued in that role until 1978 and then played Inspector Morse between 1987 and 2000. (I don't remember their being any clear holder of the crown during that interregnum.)
And here they are together in a Z-Cars episode from 1964.
Trivia fans will be pleased that Sheila Hancock, who was married to John Thaw, played Miss Hannigan opposite Stratford Johns' Daddy Warbucks in the original London production of Annie.
My interest in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at Stratford East and obsession with the original London production of Sweeney Todd meet in this video.
And it's all true. Here's R.B. Marriott reviewing the first West End performance of Make Me An Offer for The Stage (24 December 1959):
Sheila Hancock, who originally made a personal hit in the production, repeats her success, and on the first night stopped the show with her singing of "It's Sort of Romantic".
Miss Hancock is now unlikely to be in need of work in the theatre, but I hope that her originality, talent and personality will eventually be given far wider scope, not only in "suitable" supporting parts but in leading ones, for which undoubtedly she is equipped.
