Our exhibition on post-War British theatre opened today in the Folio Society Gallery at the British Library.
The exhibition – The Golden Generation: British Theatre 1945-68 - demonstrates the variety, dynamism, and vision of actors, directors and writers that flourished in British theatre between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the abolition of theatre censorship in 1968, using manuscripts, letters, oral history interviews, and photos from our collections.
I’m particularly pleased at the way we’ve combined iconic original items – handwritten drafts of Pinter, Osborne, Rattigan et al., the gloves Olivier wore in The Entertainer, a John Betjeman dust-jacket from Islington Library defaced by Joe Orton- alongside specially commissioned oral history interviews available at sound points. These interviews were conducted for the collaborative (with Sheffield University) Theatre Archive Project, and allowed those who visited or worked in post-War theatre to share their recollections for the first time. Interviewees featured include Murray Melvin, who played Geof in the stage and film versions of A Taste of Honey; Michael Seymour, a stage electrician at the Royal Court who looked down on the premiere of
from high in the flies (despite his vertigo); Joe Aveline, Technical Manager at the National, who remembers Olivier giving a highly-strung Ingmar Bergman short shrift; actor Thelma Barlow falling over a sheep while playing in regional Rep.
One of the difficulties we found when structuring the exhibiton was where to put Pinter. In many ways sui generis, and deserving of his own section; and yet so thoroughly implicated in all aspects of post-War theatre as actor, designer, director…and writer. In the end, as with Olivier, we found he made appearances everywhere. A special case marks the opening of The Homecoming –and includes letters of congratulation from Beckett and Coward- but Pinter also appears in a section celebrating regional rep. This section shows how many playwrights who developed their talent while acting in rep – Pinter, as well as Peter Nichols, John Osborne, and Charles Wood - would equally find their writing careers boosted by early recognition from regional audiences and reviewers. A photo of Pinter as the eponymous Uninvited Guest in rep at Colchester in 1955 is exhibited alongside an image of a theatre programme featuring one ‘David Baron’, a letter in which Pinter sends news from the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, to Joe Brearley, and Pinter's first scrapbook in which he pasted reviews of The Room- performed over two nights in a disused squash court in Bristol, the local Bristol Evening Post rather presciently noting that ‘Mr Pinter may well make some impact as a dramatist' (see image).
It’s open until 30 November 2008, and has got good coverage so far- from Pink News to the Telegraph, and lots in between, including an interesting piece in the Guardian .
