Joan Littlewood on Brian Murphy's This is Your Life

I've written several times about Joan Littlewood and her extraordinary influence on British theatre. Here is a short clip of her, recorded for Brian Murphy's This is Your Life.

In the run up to it, you hear what an extraordinary struggle it was for someone from the working class, like Murphy, to get training as an actor.

And after it, there's confirmation that Joan Littlewood didn't just have connections with ITV comedy (half the cast of On the Buses came from her Stratford East company), she had them with BBC comedy too.

I've written about the 30 years of slog Nigel Hawthorne experienced before he became famous overnight in Yes Minister. As I say in that post, he once said he owed his career to Joan Littlewood – she had cast him as Field Marshall Haig in a touring production of Oh! What a Lovely War.

I'd also read that Jimmy Perry, one of the writers of Dad's Army, had spent time at Stratford East, and here he is confirming it.

The long, long apprenticeship of Sir Nigel Hawthorne

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.