Ghosts of Stratford Present and Past
I did something I’ve been meaning to do for ages the other day. I counted up how many times I’ve reviewed Hamlet. It came to forty seven, so I’ve a short way to go before I can match J C Trewin’s daunting title of one of his last books: Five and Eighty HAmlets.
Why did I bother to do this? I’d been invited by the Shakespeare Club in Stratford-upon-Avon to talk about seeing our national poet performed all over the world. Of course there were Hamlets I never reviewed, such as my first, and my favourite, David Warner’s at the RSC. And I never saw John Gielgud play the role, though I saw him recite speeches from it, most notably “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” at top speed with perfect articulation.
My mood of retrospection was tinged with melancholy as, on Tuesday afternoon, I watched the cranes and wrecker balls rip out the heart of the old theatre by the Avon. It really is the most shocking sight. And as I stood there in Waterside, I swear they munched up Seat H22 in the upper gallery where I perched to watch Ian Richardson in a blond wig as Coriolanus. I took this act of desecration very personally indeed.
It is amazing how many times I’ve seen Coriolanus, too. But in over seven hundred Shakespeare productions, the two plays that retain their ability to shock, surprise and delight have to be Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, even if my personal favourites are The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Shakespeare Club was founded in 1824, shortly before that David Warner Hamlet, and their meetings represent an interesting confluence of the Shakespeare industry in the town and the local enthusiam for the RSC (not untainted with serious reservations about the way things are going).
There was only one course of action open to me after the talk and the very jolly reception: dinner at the Dirty Duck, where our table was graced by the aforesaid David Warner himself. David is much enjoying his rebirth with the company and promises me that they have found a way now of making his Falstaff — what strange casting that was — infinitely more interesting than when it first opened.
Stratford is a bit of a ghost town at this time of year. The Christmas lights are not yet turned on. One of my friends had been to see Richard II that night; she raved about it but said that the Courtyard was only half full. I was the sole guest in the B&B where the Club had me billeted.
My first Stratford address in the early 1960s was Mrs Richardson at 57 Rother Street. The poor dear died of drink years ago, but she used to give us huge greasy breakfasts that kept us going all day, and half the night, too, when my brother and I used to creep down to the theatre in the early hours to queue for tickets on the day. You had to — you couldn’t get in, otherwise.
Sam Jackson, manager of the Dirty Duck, has further fuelled these memories by excavating even more old photographs for the pub walls. My favourite is one of Roy Dotrice and David Warner nursing pints in broad daylight on the pub terrace. There are two speech bubbles. Dotrice: “Where is everyone?” Warner: “They’ve all gone home for breakfast.”
Those were the days. We have indeed heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow. Roy Dotice did in fact play Shallow in the great Peter Hall/John Barton history plays sequence, and Warner chipped in as Mouldy in the recruitment scenes in Shallow’s orchard. Now David’s playing Falstaff. And he never touches a drop.
November 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Dear Michael,
Your nostalgic piece on the ghosts of Stratford struck a chord. My first visit was as a Shakespeare-mad 12 year old in 1965. Isaw Eric Porter as Shylock and I sent him my programme to autograph - he responded to my enthusiasm with a most delightful letter. There was a lesson in courtesy to a young fan. For the next ten years I must have seen virtually every single RSC production either at Stratford or the Aldwych. Like you, I saw Ian Richardson’s blonde “Coriolanus” - were you the one sitting along the row in short trousers? On the little train that went from Leamington to Stratford, in those days the only way to reach the little market town, Iwas thrilled to eavesdrop on a group of people, clearly ‘in the know’, saying that “Ian” had damaged his knee. True enough, that afternoon the knee didn’t bend, nor, however, did that mighty voice crack. Like you, too, I saw the Warner “Hamlet” - still MY favourite by a mile - though not my first, that was O’Toole’s at the Old Vic. As I was only ten I don’t remember a lot about it except that I thought it was FABULOUS.
When I take the stage every night (twice on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays!) as the actor-manager Vincent Crummles in “Nicholas Nickleby” I am, in my head, paying a small homage to those heroes of our youth. Did you know that Dickens dedicated the first edition of “NN” to his great friend William Charles Macready? Well if CD wasn’t embarrassed about remaining stage-struck into adulthood, why should we be?
Yours,
Jonathan
November 19th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Jonathan, that’s a very touching testimonial. What a voice Richardson had! It must be a marvellous conduit for such memories playing Vincent Crummles. Yes indeed, the theatre was in Dickens’ blood all his life, something I thought Simon Callow conveyed very well in his one man show. I’m glad to see from a Telegraph interview with your directors that you are retaining the terrific Stephen Oliver music. Stephen was a great friend of mine at Oxford; he arrived having already written 57 operas and we shared a piano for a couple of terms in Worcester College. He was an amazing whirlwind of a person and I remember that the first RSC show at Stratford I ever reviewed, Keith Hack’s production of The Tempest in The Other PLace in 1975, had a complete sea-score by him (that was the RSC debut season of Richard Griffiths and Ian McDiarmid, too). Nickleby was the great RSC hit of 1980, slightly overshadowing (a bit unfairly, in my view) John Barton’s ten-play series of The Greeks earlier in the year; and that had a wonderful score, too, by Nick Bicat. I think someone should make an album of the best RSC music over the past thirty years…
November 27th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I too was a little shocked to see the ripped apart RST, especially since Michael Boyd has spent most of the last two years telling Dame Judi Dench that he was saving the building. Since he also keeps trying to convince himself and others that the RSC is still a ‘company’, rhetoric is obviously all in the theatre.
The last public event in the old RST, a meeting of all RSC artistic directors except Peter Hall (who appeared on video) was a great and important occasion sadly not reported in the press. Nunn said that the RST — a raked stage thrusting through the proscenium — had defined the RSC’s style. I fear that the RSC is giving up too soon on the proscenium and for the wrong reason, namely because they’ve decided that current actors and directors lack the technique and imagination to command distances and empty spaces.