A History of the RSC in 50 Objects (Online)

Programme

Afore Night Come, 1962

Playwright: David Rudkin (b.1936)
Director: Clifford Williams

Afore Night Come was part of a group of plays put on at the New Arts Theatre Club (NATC) in London. It was the first time the play had been performed. In 1962 British theatres were still subject to censorship laws. The violence and bad language in Afore Night Come would have made it impossible to stage in a public theatre. The NATC was a members-only club and became the venue for some of the RSC's most controversial work of the 1962 season.

The play involves the murder of one of the characters who is decapitated. The press reviews on the opening night reported that a woman in the stalls fainted when the head was rolled across the stage. The bad language was also criticised with one reviewer calling it '…a play that festers and appals and shocks'. Even so, most critics were intrigued.