13 Extra-ordinary Actors from The SOHO THEATRE in the 70's.

'A Hall of Fame' or 'Rogues Gallery' depending on your point of view!
All of these actors (seen here in other things) took part in plays and shows under my directorial watch for The Fringe theatre company I founded with my late ex-wife Verity, at the tail end of the sixties. All artistes seen here played (some more than once) in one or two of the three earliest venues of The Soho Theatre before I left in '76. None of these were custom built theatres, unlike the current, very successful 'Writers Centre and Theatre' at 21, Dean Street, in Soho and four minutes around the corner from my home. The earliest of them was a basement in New Compton Street; next came The King's Head, an Islington Pub and then another basement, the legendary Soho Poly, in Ridinghouse Street - now a Uni.store. I had real fun putting these clips together but be warned 'though the audio is fine it is best to view the whole thing in a SMALLER screen size as the video quality is mixed.

(BTW thanks to Poemsapennyeach who expressed a curiosity about my shady theatre past. .........(For you Kristine!).........................

And and a check list of the Plays these individuals appeared in for The Soho (NOT the clips!).....

P.J.Proby
SPIDER RABBIT by MICHAEL MCCLURE*

Nigel Hawthorne
THE TRIAL OF ST.GEORGE by COLIN SPENCER *

Amanda Lear
SPIDER RABBIT by MICHAEL MCCLURE*.

Clive Merrison
ORISON by FERNANDO ARRABAL
POST MORTEM by BRIAN CLARKE*
THE SOUL OF THE WHITE ANT by SNOO WILSON

Diana Quick
THE CORNET LESSON by ROY KENDALL.

William Hootkins
THE TECHNICIANS by OLWEN WYMARK*
THE PANSY by MICHAEL MCCLURE*

John Hurt
THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR by JOE ORTON.
THE DUMB WAITER by HAROLD PINTER.

Paul Freeman
THE FIFTH LABOUR OF HERCULES by FRIEDRICH DüRRENMATT*

Richard O'Brien
AND THEY USED TO STAR IN MOVIES by CAMPBELL BLACK

Henry Woolf
NUMBER THREE by JOHN GRILLO*
DOCTOR GALLEY by CONRAD BROMBERG*

Michael Harbour
FUN by GEOFFREY CASE*
COME by DAVID MOWAT.

Barbara Flynn.
LONESOME-LIKE by HAROLD BRIGHOUSE*

John Ratzenberger
THE ASS-HOLE by JOHN RATZENBERGER AND RAY HASSET*

* Denotes where I was the director.

Of course there were many, many others; plays and players. 50+ productions were staged in a 3 and a half year period at The Soho Poly alone and it went on to do many, many more after I had gone.

I was Story Editor for Thames Television's The Naked Civil Servant and also, one way or other got to meet or know most of the writers on the list apart from the late, great Joe Orton and also F. Durrenmatt, H.Brighouse and F.Arrabal - for obvious reasons.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• The Soho Poly London Fringe
• Fred Proud
• Verity Bargate
• The Ephemeral Art
• You'll Never Walk Alone

[manjadolan]

Thank you for the upload, Casper33. I'm interested in everything regarding P.J. Proby and have always regretted that nothing is to be found on the Internet on his performance of Spider Rabbit. On top of this I grew up with the writers from The Beat Generation. Are there any stories you could share about the play and the performance? Any photographs left of P.J. Proby and Amanda Lear?

[Caspar33]

@manjadolan I could look up the dates of newspaper reviews and pre-publicity from local papers and National Press. I don't know if you would have any success approaching them directly from so far back. (The ones that used Nobby's photos I mean). He rented a flat in the King's Road, Chelsea by the way so it was maybe 20 min/half hour ride - and on first performance he had done a rather over-the-top make-up BEFORE he set off for The King's Head. In the King's Road in '71, practically normal!!

[manjadolan]

@Caspar33 Thank you, that's very interesting. I have just asked PJ what he remembers and he mainly remembers doing the performance in the afternoons and Catch My Soul at nights. He says he played a Rabbit that turned int a Deadly Spider, but his soul was rescued by an Angel (Amanda) and in the end he turned into a tame Rabbit again. :)

[Caspar33]

@manjadolan When you doagain please say 'Hi' from me! Was a lunchtime season of plays always starting at 1.15 to suit local workers. Yes, that pretty well sums up the plot. More of a cross between the two - at one point he takes off the top of the skull of a Soldier hidden under the table with an electric carving-knife and spoons out the brains still grinning and chatting to the audience. I think McClure's writing at the time and P.J.'s singing were ALL feeling and body - elemental!

[xyzllii]

Very Cool indeed !

[Caspar33]

@xyzllii This one flagged as spam but thanks again.

[MrPamppers]

@Caspar33 Yes it is a bit difficult to understand but i can still enjoy the video!

[xyzllii]

All I said was 'cool...very cool'...or something like that ? If a comment is marked as spam...you can still read it..and un-mark it as such...I have done that before now...blips....BTW Do you have any inside snout on Hotel Soho ?

[Caspar33]

A charming, gentle guy. Came to the theatre in Islington on the back of his P.A's motorcycle. It was the time of Catch My Soul at The Roundhouse - which I never saw. (1) Down to work pressure I guess. I did have some black & white photos from Nobby Clarke but sadly they're long gone. It was the opening production in the venue and it did the trick - a great deal of attention and reactions of all kinds: shocked, mystified and wildly enthusiastic. P.J had some line problems but A.L. was fine.

[Caspar33]

@manjadolan Not me, no.

[Caspar33]

@MrPamppers Thanks for taking the medicine! Shakespeare must be specially hard when English is not your main language.

[Caspar33]

@Poemsapennyeach Great. If I can find the clips might do a sequel one day!