It is the evening of July 27th 2012 and a packed auditorium at Stratford's Theatre Royal are watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on a big screen stretched across the famous stage. It is somehow fitting to be watching this modern, hugely expensive theatrical extravaganza in the intimate confines of this historical part of Stratford and the long, impressive choreography of the Industrial Revolution, as presented by Danny Boyle, has an obvious resonance in an area that was once the beating heart of the industrial South. Not that the majority of the audience seemed too bothered about the smaller details of the history lesson. Cheering loudly when each of the African or Caribbean nations later entered the stadium, they represent the changed dynamic of the theatre, which has now successfully captured the imaginations of the local demographic. It wasn't always like this.
When Joan Littlewood and a small band of her troubadours arrived in Stratford on a wet Sunday in February in 1953 no one could have guessed what was in store. First impressions suggested not a lot. The theatre was in a state of disrepair, the locals were indifferent and though it was only a handful of miles away from London's Theatre land in the West End, it may well have been in another country, such was its lack of importance and reputation to the cognoscenti of the dramatic arts.
Britain was bleak in these austere days and the end of all food rationing was still a year away. Stratford was a smokey, dirty place, full of railway and industry, much of which poisoned the air with unpleasant smells. British theatre, and the drama it supported was staid and conservative. And here came this bunch of upstarts, relocated from 'up North', with a plan to blow away some of these cobwebs and drag the stage kicking and screaming into the modern world that, luckily for them, was just around the corner.
At first it was a distinctly uphill battle. Money problems, lack of support from the local authorities and a boiler that never seemed to work were constants. The locals in this predominantly working class area showed little interest in the work of the Theatre Workshop, despite Joan's best efforts to engage them, in line with her left-wing outlook. The loyal following they developed was both small and from outside, people making a journey along the Central Line into, what was for them, the unknown: to this compact little theatre nestled amongst the two-up-two-downs a short walk from the grubby station.
The truth of the matter is that the theatre had led a troubled existence from birth in 1884, unwanted by the those who couldn't separate the theatre from its location. Situated on the edge of a grid of streets around Angel Lane and Salway Road, the heart of which, an area called The Shoot, had a somewhat fearsome reputation, it was thought that a very low kind of drama would be on offer to the worst characters of the neighbourhood. By the 1920's, what audiences they had attracted were being lured away by the cinema and it became a venue for revues and variety for a number of years.
Only someone driven by a vision would surely have dared then, to serve up a diet of agit-prop theatre inspired by European figures such as Brecht, Piscator and Laban. But from the moment a tatty manuscript arrived one day called The Quare Fellow, written by a hard drinking force of nature called Brendan Behan that is just what the Theatre Workshop did. A string of inspired and radical productions followed, both in terms of stage design and script. A Taste of Honey,The Hostage and Fings Ain't Wot They Used T' Be were amongst the follow up acts, all successfully transferring to the West End that had previously resisted the brilliance of this upstart theatre out there in the grime of E15. By the time Oh, What A Lovely War! had cemented Littlewood's reputation in the nation's consciousness she herself had begun to tire of even this level of inventiveness and increasingly turned her attentions to projects abroad and her ill-fated Fun Palace venture with fellow radical, architect Cedric Price.
The worldwide fame that this level of success brought no doubt helped secure the future of the theatre but it still took the ceaseless efforts of Gerry Raffles to stop the building being demolished as developers razed the area around it to the ground in order to build the shopping centre that still stands today. Perhaps Joan's real legacy however, has less to do with avant garde theatre and more to do with a small side project called The Playbarn. Dismayed by the small but incessant acts of mindless vandalism of some of the bored local youth she decided to give them a space to perform and act out their fantasies, a brief moment in time captured brilliantly in Barney Platts-Mills' short documentary, Everyone's An Actor, Shakespeare Said. Finally some local people were fully engaged with the theatre and though the experiment was short-lived it acted as a kind of vision of the future where the theatre and neighbouring Stratford Circus complex have managed to fully engage the new demographic of Newham, in particular the younger generation.
This has been down to the hard work and exuberance of Philip Hedley and then Kerry Michaels and both managed to blend entertainment without forgoing political comment from the dramatic fare on offer. But they, and the people who have worked alongside them, would be the first to acknowledge that without Joan and Gerry none of this would have been possible and it is only down to them that the jewel in Stratford's cultural crown survives and thrives.