Theatre Memories

Jane Malcolm: On March 31st 2007 at the last ever performance in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre [RST] in Stratford-upon-Avon, the RSC's Artistic Director, Michael Boyd, spoke of the ghosts of all the great actors who had performed there in the walls of this historic space. Ghosts they may be, but they're very much alive in the memories of the many thousands of people who've made up the audiences in that famous auditorium over the years. It had been opened in 1932 as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and became the Royal Shakespeare Theatre [RST] in 1961, after the formation of the modern Royal Shakespeare Company by Sir Peter Hall. On April 29th 2007, as part of Shakespeare's birthday celebrations, members of the public were invited into the auditorium for a last look before work starts on its transformation. Many of those who turned up were long time loyal fans of the RST. Pat Elliot's first visit was just three years after it opened, in 1935.

Pat Elliot: My first performance was Antony and Cleopatra. Catherine Lacey played Cleopatra and Roy Emerton was Antony. I mean, at eight years old, Shakespeare would go right over one's head but I was enchanted by the spectacle of it.

Phillip Clapson: My name's Phillip, Phillip Clapson. The first time I came to Stratford was fifty years ago.

Jane Malcolm: Fifty? 5-0?

Phillip Clapson: 5-0 years ago, yeah, when I was at university at Leicester. We used to come over here for the evening performances as students, and also in my days at university, I actually was rowing on the river here in the regattas. So quite a few connections with Stratford.

Pat Elliot: I was lucky to have an aunt who lived in Stratford - I come from London originally - and from then on, really, I used to come to the theatre virtually every year and stay with my aunt and go and see everything that was on the week that I was here.

Jane Malcolm: She has since come to live in Stratford, and we'll be hearing more from Pat later. Sisters Jean and Sue Linden also brought along some memories of the 1930s: a 1939 programme. You weren't here in 1939 surely?

Jean Linden: No, it was my Aunt and Uncle. They came for their honeymoon then, and they came to see it. My Uncle gave it me before he died.

Jane Malcolm: Oh that's fantastic. So this is what they did on their honeymoon?

ean Linden: Yeah, so I think that's why he gave it me, I think that's where I get my love for Stratford and Shakespeare, from them two, yeah.

Jane Malcolm: What was the production? What was it?

Sue Linden: Oh, it's the best one for a honeymoon.

Jean Linden: Romantic.

Jane Malcolm: Oh, lovely. Much Ado About Nothing. Trevor Howard.

Jean Linden: Geoffrey Keene.

Jane Malcolm: Geoffrey Keene. Wow. You came to the theatre for the first time considerably later.

Jean Linden: Yeah... 1966 to see Hamlet with David Warner, which was fantastic.

Jane Malcolm: What about you? What was your first memory of the RST?

Sue Linden: It was... because of my sister's enthusiasm, I came to see Diana Rigg in Twelfth Night. David Warner was in that as well, wasn't he? So that sort of set me off then, so after that we kept coming, didn't we?

Jane Malcolm: David Warner played Hamlet in Peter Hall's 1965 production. It also made a lasting impression on Sharon Cross.

Sharon Cross: It was very much of its time: the student... slightly melancholic, indecisive epitome of that period - and I saw it with two Ophelias. One with Janet Suzman, who I saw in the last performance I've seen here, in Coriolanus and also, later, Glenda Jackson, who is almost the antithesis of Ophelia because she's such an emphatic and definite lady - but it was a very interesting piece of casting.

Jane Malcolm: 1965 also saw a juxtaposition of two classics. Edith Bullock has been coming to Stratford for 62 years, but for her the most memorable performances go back to the 1960s.

Sharon Cross: Oh, years ago, Eric Porter did Barabas in The Jew of Malta and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and that was wonderful. I saw both, obviously. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Jane Malcolm: The 1950s was Laurence Oliver's decade at the RSC.

Pat Newman: My name is Pat Newman. I first came to Stratford when I was doing my 'O' Levels, with three friends. We stayed at a little Bed and Breakfast down the road and it was the era of Laurence Olivier and Vivienne Leigh. I remember my mother sending me... we came for a week and my mother sent me a telegram saying I'd passed eight 'O' Levels, which was the icing on the cake because we'd had this wonderful time doing the whole of Stratford, and lots of plays, and since then I've just never stopped coming.

Jane Malcolm: If you could choose your favourite performance that you've seen in Stratford...

Pat Newman: Oh, I couldn't. I've seen hundreds! I couldn't, I really couldn't, I mean they're all... they're all different. You think one Richard III is better than another Richard III, one Richard II... I did like the Richard II and Bolingbroke where they changed roles, you know, they tossed up the roles. I loved Anthony Sher as Richard III. Or recently I've just loved Antony and Cleopatra with Patrick Stewart, I like most of them.

Jane Malcolm: And so to the 1970s. Sharon Cross again.

Sharon Cross: One of the ones that sticks in my mind actually is Ian Richardson and Richard Pasco doing Richard II and alternating. Particularly because I saw that production when something went wrong with the mechanism by which Ian Richardson was being hauled up in the air for his last speech before he's disposed of, and the night I saw it something went badly wrong with it and the poor man had to deliver the speech supported by one arm only instead if two, and gallantly he continued like the professional he was - but it was really quite nerve-wracking, at least for the half of the audience who'd seen the production the other way round and knew that this wasn't meant to happen. So an audible gasp went round the auditorium.

Jane Malcolm: They got him down in the end, did they?

Sharon Cross: They did, yes.

Jane Malcolm: The RST was also the venue for many a rising star. Jean and Sue Linden.

Jean Linden: I was looking at one of the old programmes the other afternoon - the Hamlet one with David Warner - and what was interesting was playing the Player King was Patrick Stewart and it must have been one of the first things he did for the RSC.

Jane Malcolm: And now he's here having been the big star of The Complete Works.

Jean Linden: Well, because we used to come and see Alan Howard in all the plays, and a lot of the actors that were from them plays are now stars. I mean Charles Dance - he was an extra, holding the flag, you know, in Henry V and now he's a star.

Sue Linden: Remember that Alan Howard production, that... Henry IV part II when he came on in all the gold, the gold costume.

Jean Linden: The Coronation outfit. We sat up in the side seat then, didn't we, and it was just so effective, you know, the way he'd come down the stage. I don't know how he walked with it all on, it was so heavy [laughs].

Jane Malcolm: Edward Jenkins and his wife Gillian remember the sixteenth century transposed to the 'fifties in 1985.

Edward Jenkins: Well, the favourite? Two ladies sitting under the hairdryers. The 1950s... version, if you like... of Merry Wives of Windsor. We've still got all the Programmes, which are beginning to be a bit of a pile now.

Gillian Jenkins: I think the very first one was saw was John Thaw. What it was, I don't know.

Edward Jenkins: Twelfth Night, up in the tree.

Gillian Jenkins: There was a tree in the middle of the stage.

Edward Jenkins: And then of course, thinking back now I've had a minute to, Anthony Sher's 'spider' Richard III. I'm sure people remember that with terror. [Laughs]

Jane Malcolm: And that, believe it or not, was in 1984. Sally Arnold remembers back to the era when for some it was standing room only, unless you got lucky.

Sally Arnold: I came as a student when I was about eighteen. My friend and I stayed at the caravan just on the river and we came and stood at the back. But one evening, a gentleman came to us and said would we like to have his tickets because some of his party hadn't arrived - and there we were in our art student duffel coats and he took us down to the front - and those were the days when people actually had evening dress when they came to the theatre, so we did feel a bit silly but we had a lovely time.

Jane Malcolm: Do you remember what you saw?

Sally Arnold: I haven't a clue [laughs].

Jane Malcolm: Jean and Sue Linden loved the whole experience of their trips to Stratford.

Sue Linden: Yeah, planning our next visit then, didn't we? We used to say 'we've enjoyed that, shall we go again?' and said 'Oh go on, let's see if we can get a ticket and come again.'

Jean Linden: Because then, they always used to class the first row as not a very good seat, so we used to get them for £5.

Jane Malcolm: And sit in the front?

Jean Linden: Sit in the front, yeah. Every time we came we got the front seats, you know. It was great.

Jane Malcolm: Some regulars travel considerable distances. Graham Stanbridge.

Graham Stanbridge: Twenty three years ago, my wife and I went to the sports centre in Tiverton with our family. We saw [The ] Comedy of Errors there and we were so entranced by it that the following year we booked in to come up here. We saw Much Ado [About Nothing] and since then we have been coming up three, four times a year. We've got a touring caravan which we have left in a farm, and the guy - who we've known for a long time - said to us 'Graham, why on earth are you taking this van backwards and forwards by the minute, you know, when we're perfectly happy, for a small fee, to leave it here?' So that's great because there were occasions during the Winter when we saw something on the Saturday and we were back up on the following Thursday to see something else. So the car knows the motorway intimately but the caravan has been left on site, which has been wonderful for us.

Jane Malcolm: And some come from even further afield, like Diedre Edwards.

Diedre Edwards: I'm Canadian, and I first came to England in 1970 and I was then starting to study to become a Nurse and I saved up for months to come to the first production that I ever came to at the RSC.

Jane Malcolm: And what was it?

Diedre Edwards: It was King Lear and my daughter's seeing it now. She's 21 this year and she's seeing it on Monday.

David Gaskell: One year we saw Branagh doing Hamlet on the Saturday night - I think it was a Birthday performance - and ended up going home and coming back on Tuesday to see Richard III and we did that in a straight run, we got home about two in the morning, so it's been great, you know.

Andrea Gaskell: We try and come every year and we've been coming since... well, I've been coming since 1975 when I first came as a 16 year old.

Jane Malcolm: Do you remember what you saw?

Andrea Gaskell: Yes, I saw Henry IV parts I and II and Henry V. It was the Birthday celebration weekend so it's actually 32 years ago this weekend. And we celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary here, and lots of other occasions. Shakespeare's my hero, and I teach primary school children and, whenever I can, I try and introduce Shakespeare to them because I think it's wonderful. They love it, yeah.

Jane Malcolm: Which plays do you teach them?

Andrea Gaskell: I've done a few over the years. I've done Macbeth, I've done [A ] Midsummer Night's Dream, aspects of King Lear, aspects of Hamlet, The Tempest.

Jane Malcolm: Wow.

Andrea Gaskell: Yeah, obviously not the whole play but parts of it, and they love it.

Jane Malcolm: David and Andrea Gaskell, from Wigan. Pauline Pearson may be more local but she's a true fan of the RST.

Pauline Pearson: I first came in 1956 when I was twelve, and I saw Alan Badel in Hamlet. All through my school years I used to come with one particular school friend. We used to come early in the morning on the bus and queue up outside and if we were lucky we got seats along the back row of the stalls or, if not, we stood. But we were quite happy to stand in those days, which I wouldn't do now. I used to be an avid autograph hunter as well, so I saw Charles Laughton's Lear and Paul Robeson's Othello, and I suppose the big one was the 1964 and Peter Hall's Wars of the Roses which I did see in a whole week. In fact, I dug up my autograph book last night and I wondered whether to bring it but I thought, well, it's too precious really, just in case I'd lost it.

Jane Malcolm: And it's not just the stars who trod those famous boards. Pat Elliot, who we heard from earlier, she had seen productions here in the 1930s. She got her big day on that stage too.

Pat Elliot: The local Operatic Society were doing Annie Get Your Gun. It had run very well from Tuesday until the Friday night: packed houses, good cast who worked together. I was in the prompter's corner, and on Saturday I had gone to my friend's house, our leading lady, to help get the party ready, and during the preparations in the morning, the telephone rang - Annie, our leading lady, dashed to answer it, and I heard her say 'Pat will do it' and I thought 'Oh well, I wonder what that is? Oh, I'm probably going to be given an instruction for prompting', you know, and she came back looking very worried and looked at me, and I was told that Olive, who was playing Dolly Tate, had collapsed with bronchitis and wouldn't be able to come in to do the matinee and the evening performance and then she said 'I've told the committee that you will stand in for Dolly Tate', and a lot of thoughts went through my mind. It was now twenty past eleven, the matinee started at half past two. So I heard a very unfamiliar voice saying 'Okay, I'll do it, as long as you get me down to the theatre now.' So I came down, and they put a working light up for me on the stage, so that I could walk through everything. Strangely enough, I'd had a dream for many, many years - I think we all have it actually - that we're standing waiting to go on and we don't know what we're going to say. Funnily enough, after that night, I never ever had it again.

Jane Malcolm: Although everyone I spoke to was looking forward to the new RST, their happy memories were mixed with sadness at the passing of the old theatre. Graham Stanbridge.

Graham Stanbridge: It's a very emotional day. I went on the tour yesterday and took photos of our favourite seats, you know, which were right at the back of the stalls... and that was great... but we understand the reasoning behind it and we're sure that, with The Courtyard being dropped in to the RST, that with a bit of fancying up and seats a bit more comfortable and so on - than they are in places in The Courtyard - that it's going to be, again, a wonderful experience.

Jane Malcolm: Ian McDonald brought some of his prized programmes with him to donate to the RSC archive. Ian, how far back do you go with the RSC, do you remember?

Ian McDonald: Yes. 1951 and I saw Michael Redgrave in Richard II. I came down from Scotland, I was living in Scotland, up in Dundee, and we came down by coach party to a residential college in Barford, eight miles from here. We came here regularly. Every year. That was the first year that we came. I stayed for a week and saw all the plays. They used to do five plays then.

Jane Malcolm: People feel very loyal, they love the RSC if they like Shakespeare at all. Why do you think that is?

Ian McDonald: I can't put my finger on it. It's like coming home when I come here, and I can't put my finger on why it is.

Jane Malcolm: Will you be sad that the RST is being changed?

Sharon Cross: I am, because obviously I’ve been coming here for... God, it's ages now. 62 years, I suppose. Yes, I've had happy times here.

Pat Elliot: Ever since I came - in the car - across Clopton Bridge and looked across the river and saw the theatre, that was my enchanted castle.

Jane Malcolm: What do you think about it being redeveloped then?

Pat Elliot: I know it needs bringing up to date - the facilities are not good enough, and the sort of theatre has changed in 72 years, people expect different things. I was very worried when they were threatening to destroy the theatre but hoped they wouldn't because it is a listed building. I was 80 in February, and whether I will be here in 2010 to go into the new theatre, I don't know. It has been so much of my life for so long and I just had to come today to say a last goodbye.

Jane Malcolm: My thanks to Pat Elliot and everyone who shared their memories of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It's due to reopen in 2010, and I've no doubt that Pat will be there. I'm Jane Malcolm and this is a Podcats production for the Royal Shakespeare Company.