The Mother of Modern Theatre

 

          So I admit that I didn’t quite pull off the whole "I'm gonna post loads of articles and never stop until I’ve covered everything" thing, but to be honest with you, I’ve fallen prey to the most common addiction faced by teenagers : sleep. So while I’d love to profess to have not written because I have been doing homework, or contributing fantastic things to the world of science, or achieving world peace, I would quite simply be lying. Nope, I have been contributing nothing more to the world than my own absence, and that is something that you should all be very grateful for. But here I am, back again, to ramble some more and reassure you that however stupid you may feel, I am out there, lowering the bar for people everywhere...
   Anyway, I have a confession to make. History and Politics are not my only loves. Drama has a hold of a part of my heart in a way that I feel can never been reversed. So instead of feeling slightly ashamed that my interests are split, I have decided to combine them, and write about a woman who, to be honest with you, I think is pretty decent: Joan Littlewood.
    The thespians of you may be aware of some of Joan’s more famous productions, such as Oh, What a lovely War! And A taste of honey, and if you haven't heard of them or seen them, I highly suggest that you do! Littlewood was very left wing, so much so in fact that she joined the Communist party in Britain, and so was banned from banned from broadcasting on the BBC until MI5 investigated and decided she had broken off ties two years later. And I could go on for ages about how all of her productions have really struck a chord with so many people, and how she revolutionised the world of acting, but there are three things that I love the most about her : One, that she tried to make theatre truly accessible for everyone, rather than just the rich ; two, that she refused to go along with the myth spread about that the First World War was almost 'jolly'; and three, that she stuck by her views right up until the day she died.
Part of the reason I love her so much is that she stood out, from day one. She was basically who I want to be. When she was 12 she asked her Grandfather why the general strike had collapsed after ten days, and when he asked 'what do you want, red revolution?' her answer then and up until the day she died was quite simply 'yes'. She had her views and she stuck to them. I don’t know, maybe I love her so much because she is who I would love to be. Or maybe she is who I want to be because I love her. Either way, it doesn’t matter. She saw that things were almost being 'covered up', great social injustices. So she simply changed that, and shouted at the top of her voice about them. She could act, and she loved politics, so she did something. So although many may not agree with her far-left wing views, I will stand by Joan the way I stand by Winston. Quite simply because I believe that there’s nothing worse than staying quiet when you don’t agree with something. Stand up, shout about it. People may not agree with you, but people didn’t agree with my Winston. And if he hadn’t stood up against appeasement, where would we be now...
  So there we are. An article that I feel very strongly about. Go on, take a leaf out of Joan’s book... shout out a little bit...
 I do have a very loud voice...
 E.C