Murray Melvin in conversation with Michael Billington

thank you all for coming to my platform Thank You Murray very much indeed it's a huge pleasure to welcome Murray to this National fitter platform Murray as I'm sure all of you will know has had a very long and brilliant career he joined Theatre Workshop at Stratford East to the late 1950s making the tea I believe sweeping the stage playing modest roles he went on to play Jeffrey and taste of honey the title role in Brendon beans the hostage and to be part of the extraordinaire Rijal Cars two very what a lovely war and Murray retains very strong links today with the Theatre Royal acting as its archivist on top of that he's had a very distinguished film career which included winning Best Actor at can in 1962 for the film version of a taste of honey he worked many times with Ken Russell he worked with Stanley Kubrick and on television Murray was in the very first episode of The Avengers I believe in 1960 and got killed at the end of it there's no justice for an hour and most recently I think Torchwood you were in so it's a very comprehensive career but today what we'd like to do is talk a little while about Murray's years with theatre workshop and we'll talk for 30 minutes and then open it up to questions um so Murray can I whisk us back or whisk you back really to 1958 and a taste of honey and I was looking up today under the woods book Jones book where she says the original script by Sheila Delaney was a mess and that night were the first two actors she approached Avis bundage and John Bay wanted to be in it so my first question to you is how much work did you as actors have to do on that script to make it stable basically well to go back to that first statement it was going to be Theatre Workshop was penniless and Michael as you well know derisory the amount of money from the Arts Council or the local councils and they were broke and it really was going to be the last play because I've got a recorded interview with Avis Spanish who created Helen um in which she says she'd lifts the company gone back to Manchester and she got a call from Joan saying now Avis I've just received this play young girl from Manchester it's about Manchester it's a small cast and we've decided that we want to put this on and then that will be the end of the Theatre Royal and it'll be the end of certain workshops so I want you to come back and play this part maybe's no no Joan I don't want to no no I've gone I've left though she should come when Joan was in that sort of mood you couldn't refuse and so she came back to do this last play it was five handed you know normally Joan liked large cosplays she liked moving lots of people around that she could do it um but it was just five cars and in those days they were on the proper players were on four pound a week and I was a acting student s whatever and I was on two so you know it didn't cost me it was going to be the last play had it not be the success no you would have had no hostage no oh what a lovely one no no no no and so coming back to my point about the script I mean how much were the actors helping to I do know what the word is improve or change Sheila was 19 I mean she'd done a lot of writing um but this was her first play and like any 19 year old she put it all down it was all there and so Joan's way of working whether you were doing a contemporary play or if some would you call content for you probably would in 1959 Willy or O'Rear Ben I mean the process was exactly the same you broke the script down in just in two units its basic Stanislavski broke it down into units worked on it improvised it always what was what was the author's intention for that moment can you think of any specific examples of moments or lines in taste of honey that came out of rehearsal or improvisation with the reading particular moment you remember there was one line that that I know everybody gets confused about it's Peter on one of his visits he goes off to the loo and he comes back with a line to get him back on stage and there's a line about the cockroaches they're playing leapfrog and Johnny bass thought that was a bit like that very much and they were debating this line and because I was busy looking after John without Google was making the tea doing the prop and I had a pair of ropes old shoes and I stood on a cloud now theatricals know what a clout is for their clout through what you put canvas on two frames it had a long shank and a very large round it so he didn't go in into the canvas it stayed on top and I stood on it and that shank went into my foot and I yelped and hobbled to the side of the stage and showed everybody what had happened and half of them ran off because they couldn't bear to look at it and I said pull it out Joe just fully time and she looked at me and said are you sure I said yes please just get it out and so she did goblins 1 2 3 and was out and as it came out I used my generation I knew it well it was a barrel boys saying which is sharp around tomorrow the cat's been all over the straw rest as it came out and and the blood came out I said I said I'll be around tomorrow and we took my sock off and did the blood and put the top back on and we were made it and as we got back up from the stairs Joe turned they said listen that was a good line of marriage you could use that and it's still there and he did he loved it it's in the printed text it's in the printed text any other examples I mean Avis bundage did she oh yeah Oh Avis yes um that's a lovely line we did this in five weeks and everything was behind and John Barry are then designer the workshops designer who later came here and then tagline born he was making the set I mean I helped him in the first act but I hadn't got much time off in the second and he and Jerry raffles who Jerry was Joan's partner and also the manager of Stratford East on they just started putting up the sin and Joan was ready to start this sort of basic run through and so it was agreed that Joan would start and they would carry on backstage I'm getting set up and the first thing to go up was a little window and so they put ropes on it and Jerry was one side of the stage and John was the other the two heavyweights pulling their weight as you would say and and and so we started and they were putting this windlass little window up and the window was swinging because of the length of the rope and it was about halfway up when Avis came on with the opening line this is the place and the girl says I don't like it and Avis looked and she looked at this thing swinging in the air and she turned front to nobody in particular and said damn silly place to put the window and Joan from the circle said keep that in Avis and a visa don't know Joanie so it's just actually keep it in and she did and it is that's a wonderful example of how plays get on particular theater workshop you've anticipated the question I was going to ask though but I'd like to take you up a bit more on this about Joan's method of working I mean everyone Revere's this great director not many of people have had the experience you've had of working with her constantly you said she broke the script down into units to find doubt the intention ala Stanislavski I mean just in a normal day is rehearsal I'm just trying to get the picture was Joan an intervening director or did you let the actors run on with the scene and use their improvised entry skills I mean how I'm trying to get pinned down how how detailed the director she was or how much she let you carry on with a scene and build up your own mementos she always said directors were not necessary don't believe it Mike like I think I've said to you before about about productions were also almost Mozart Ian in their layers of speech Joan loved for dialogues going on all at once but you've never ever missed a word because the hours that was spent on the gradations of sound she's been days on it sometimes this is absolute first names I saw something work in later years and what always came across to an audience I think was the sense of spontaneity of actors you know engaging with the audience varying performances possible night but I may have told you this before the first Joan choice always make me an offer in the West End Android can air at one point turn to the audience and I don't know he said six years in reppin here I'm humping furniture around I thought my god this is amazing but the more I saw her work the more I so it was exquisitely choreographed that was the word I was used is that fair and choreographed and physically and vocally because don't forget that he said one of the main things of Joan was l'arbre movement explain that a bit to the audience I'm Robin Michael totally implode opposed to classical dance of which I was trained so did I suffer but but then wonderfully was I could use my body well Matthew Bourne was was a Lardon boy it's based not on posing like dance classic but but on efforts efforts of the body right sky middle down and everything did you do with your body in love and you can do with the voice and so when I first I joined as a dog's body in in September of 57 and in March I played a taste of honey now there were times I didn't in retrospect I sort of realized I sometimes didn't know what I was doing but I was dancing it because my vocal output was dance and so it's very important so once you got that you refer to choreography yes indeed but of the voice as well as the body but was a lot of rehearsal time spent on that enormous you did the words last you did the words long yes well if they give him that they would change what so what did you do first when you danced it literally yes so she got the physical movement of a play before she got the yes so did you I mean yes so that you were aware of your physicality to the other characters right right you know Queens are always given ten paces aren't they you don't get you give the Queen five five yards so that's what makes her a queen because you step away so it's a basic BBC rehearsal so I mean I'm just going to picked those so Joan would work on the physical shape of the play and the movement of the play you're saying before you got really into the details of the text oh yes the first thing she would say was to throw those bloody scripts away really oh yes any workshop member would know because you you you knew what you were working on you knew that it could be three lines it could be six lines it could be a whole but you knew what it was so you concentrated on the physicality and the efforts of the character before you got to there were right so that did that mean then I mean she would basically run through the play very early on to get the sort of physical shape of it no scene-by-scene c by c right see passing right she would build it up yeah and then later on in week two whatever you're starting then to get into there unless you were doing a classical piece but then you would sit down with Ben Johnson and go through it right right and cut it oh well playing time for every man in this humour if you played as rich you're talking about three hours 25 I mean we got it down to 225 at the one interval you would go through the script first the words first of a classical piece whether it was Ben or will or whatever um of Ambra and and then having basically got it then you would move it she would say they came in right that's enough let's move it right and then you would move it and then you would go back to the word once you've got your the truth of your physicality and and and where you were right going back to taste of honey specifically I mean they were very young actor aasmaan as well as playing Geoffrey that's what I find extraordinary was Geoffrey and letting the curtain down on the first act that was your job yes I couldn't pull it out - I know I'm a matchstick I'm but Jerry used to take this day and I used to drop it and then put the record on phonograph for the interval Mew had a pretty full evening what we're playing I hadn't got much time to get nervous but you never nervous for Joan you would never know this for Joan because you know you never never you because you knew why you were walking on that stage right was Geoffrey at the time 1958 a very unusual character would you say um well that's rich as rich um yes what I'm getting at is at that stage we're talking 58 on me yes I remember you've got the Lord chair that was my point yes got official censorship it is very rare I would have thought in the late 50s to see a homosexual character on stage he wouldn't have allowed it that's why the fine line had to be drawn because he wouldn't have allowed a home acidity then no yes no quite right homosexual character to be there no so therefore this was something of a breakthrough to have this character portrayed very sympathetically by the writer on stage but his sexuality wasn't what was important was what he was which was a dream yeah caring and loving man yes looking after this yes yeah basically an ASN so I knew that because I lost them but that was easy it always strikes me that Jeffrey is also the most perceptive character in the play he's there something I think is absolutely crucial to play he says to Joe the girl at one point but she and the mother are really facing like their two sides almost of the same good that's a blindingly good insight isn't he sees the similarity they're not two separate people they're very similar people he's a vey intelligent man it's what I'm saying oh yes oh absolutely I'm but you know everybody's got a fault all the characters have got a fault there that there that's what's so intriguing I mean when you think that um you know one of the they were about to critics not you mr. Billington but there were two critics at the time said oh you know how could she possibly let that character brick come and talk to the audience I mean you know breaking the fourth wall it's see at Rabaul traditional I mean how could she do it he said what at the time well how could she put the play on that was against all traditions yeah yeah but because it was Joan doing what she used to call her continuous loop about getting a problem of the streets mm-hmm bringing it into the theater working on it and then presenting it out again and I mean five five look at those look at those characters you've got a sailor with a child in every port you've got a single-parent family a teenage pregnancy that homosexual boy I loutish lover I say today that you know if that script landed on a artistic directors desk today probably send it straight to social services but in 1958 she gathered all that together and and and created out of Sheila's out of Sheila's script can I lead you on to the next major play which you did stephanie's which was of course the hostage Brendan beans extraordinary play the hostage where you played the young British soldier who's being kept hostage in this Irish stew ER someone called it my favorite part forever was it really it really was I remember it with such joy the laugh that we never stopped laughing it was just one and by that time I was beginning to get the hang of Miss Littlewoods methods what it was very difficult to learn as an actor works with any director for the first time is getting used to their shorthand and and it was difficult I had to pick up the company the old company did love him for years years under Jean you love and and so it took a while took to get into that and see how she used it but then once I did the hostage I am I suddenly sort of found my feet I remember the hostage was even more radical in a way because that was a play where the relation between the audience and the performers and the wall was completely down wasn't it in other words that honey was Joan's answer to television I can't prove it but I've always thought if you think 57 58 I mean television was was color was coming in CinemaScope I mean nobody got off their sofas to death of variety the death of the musical almost death of theatre right because I mean you as we know people shouted at the televisions they threw their teapots through the television they kicked from television well one thing television couldn't do was answer back so therefore and so Jody Jones went back to traditional English musical where somebody went out there and if there was an answer back which they're very often more so he was very good when used to Charlie oh oh you know when you got a cold you don't feel like anything do you and and you know some nice people say no you don't know this one and of course having it was deliberate because of course she had the John Wall Bank trio out in a box to break that fourth wall and we weren't allowed to do it and Frances chuka who created Joe and myself we weren't allowed to do because we hadn't got the experience but Elvis was the only one after honey and and she saw the result in the effect we all talked to the audience yes the hostage was like some great party wasn't it remember to which the audience was invited that was the extorting about it we felt we were participating in this extraordinary vent hmm it was very difficult piece to do because it seemed like a party but believe me it was an extraordinary it was an extraordinary wonderful piece and then we had Brendan being to cope with who who would who would you I remember Howard gurney playing pat he got to the end of the song one of his songs and Brendan was in the audience as he often was and he are often as Howard finished singing from the audience Brendan got up and said I've written here another verse and then would sing it and of course it was funnier than anything he'd given Howard to sing and because the audience just loved it but of course we on stage were there with cold water on our face while Brendan did his turn and I remember one night Howard at the end of the Brendan Stern and the audience just calming down Howard said now can we Brendan can we get on with this dreary old play of you I'm leading you very quickly through what each version of one's life yes but we can't not talk about it what a lovely war which of course has just been revived to great effect one thing intrigues me when you were putting on the original production in 1963 when you were working on it and I know that the actors were extremely important in contributing to the actual script of that know what's this did you have an instinct that you were doing something that was making history as well as portraying history did you feel at the time we realized once our homework of course no matter what you were doing for Joan the amount of homework you had to do was enormous the reading that you had to do the discovery and for that we were always acted all the time and so don't forget the the reason we were able to do it was that furious before the 50-year secrecy rule was up right yes and and so one was able to get at the unofficial records rather than history as rich from the establishment down and I remember every morning we would all meet her and and she would pick on a theme first battle of the somme EEP gasps and you'd go away and do your homework and you'd come back and you'd all report what you discovered and what you thought was the salient bit and then whatever was important you would then improvise round it but I remember for the company we were brought up on history as rich from the top down and so the discovery was also as of the horror that we've got no idea existed right and there were some mornings when we were there reporting at 10 o'clock the whole company were in tears in tears of the horror of what went on in our name and never reported by anybody and so we sort of rewrote history in a way the historians will hate me for it but we did yes yes well this is the whole point I mean this was the first world war scene from a perspective we had not seen before that of the common soldiers who was told it was it was glorious and and all the flags went up and the bugles blew I mean even today debate still go on about her water livery war because I was involved I told you one the other day on the radio with a historian who was challenging the historical accuracy of some of its okay it's wonderful it is still a controversial living issue but I mean we I want to introduce the audience in a second but just looking we've done very quickly with three major productions that there's a workshop and you said earlier was fascinating the taste of honey was could have been the last show it we know what happened it became usually popular goes into West End the hostage usually popular becomes a Western success oh what a lovely war again international success was this was the success of those and other productions like things in what they used to be was that in the end the undoing of theatre shop do you think because the company began to well she changed but you Joan had that famous statement I built my life on the rock of change and so she did daily and so she did check because up till then you'd have to have seven years training on larvas to work for her but when the company was dispersed that original workshop company was gone and so she had to bring new people in there wasn't time to train them for seven years on lob right I mean it had to be instant so he did Jay and but she changed with a guy she grew with it so you don't think that dissolved a sort of Theatre Workshop spirit the fact of these productions were going around we're not the spirit no but but but no because always working with Joan was was a jewelry as well as being heartbreaking if you just stop yourself crying and stop yourself laughing no the atmosphere it's still there today I was thinking even Stratford today there is an atmosphere in that building but still Joan and Jerry that's interesting is and you obey conscious of that because I know you work in the archive you are the archive basically and you feel her presence still oh yes yes I say good morning to them or like my morning Avis morning Joan morning Jerry yes of course I do it's still there because their atmosphere is still there in that theatre that's it's still a joyous theatre to go in to make it is a joy no I've been going there you know since I came to London and it's one of my favorite venues together I remember in the early days and Philip Headley when he was in charge getting me to talk to the young ashes they usually come with them because it's like a university Stratford you know we've got our drama groups and we breathe if they want to write we encourage that if they want to do lighting we encourage that we get in front of house people and used to make me tell them the story that in my young day when audiences were scarce before before the the success of honey the audiences were scarce and so you one was very grateful anyone that came through the doors yeah yeah and it was an unwritten rule but it was just done by the company that at the end of the performance even if you were dashing off somewhere you always went into the bar and if there was somebody there you always thanked them for coming right and I stood and I still do this with our rushes today they always you have to explain to that younger generation they're cold houses and so you welcome somebody into your house and that still carries on that's very good example with this the ethos continues today I'd like to throw the questions open to the audience why maybe we've only got about 10 minutes they've got the house lights off thank you very much yes and because it's such a beautiful right once know about the Theatre Royal Stratford East itself and how much you said that encompassed or encouraged even the style of gender toward had that's a good at the end of her days she loathed it I was too constricting no she looked did you go on about any proscenium arches you know get rid of them she was into streets Yetta she was into I I see these pop concerts these days at the Oh tours and all those flashing lights and those thousands of people that's what that was the that was the germ of our idea for a fun Palace that's where he came from to get you can have moving spaces she didn't want this one set thing no she wanted moving spaces that you could change in an evening for firfer for a concert for cinema whatever she'd gone past that unfortunately I have fun palace which is now being revived by lots of young people who and suddenly she was ahead of her time but they're catching up with her that was her goal her life been about that fungal is and it really did destroy when they pulled the carpet from under her and and and canceled it it really did hurt very very deeply because she realized they couldn't keep up with her imagination getting back that question which I think it's very interesting one I mean the kind of informal approach you talked about earlier addressing the audience directly surely was easier in a fit of like federal Stratford he's seating wall 550 600 I don't know then it would be say in the Olivier or the little turn you know because the building allowed you to do that didn't it yes but he wasn't done legit actress didn't do that until she came along until she came along unless you were you were in variety on that there was the fourth wall and you pretended nobody was there and so it wasn't easy for my generally for her older members of the company that had done village halls or the miners community centers in Wales yes they were used to it we weren't and so yes we did have to work like stink at it to dare but it's a friendly space isn't it which any space already no one should break it down well I mean look at it BP filling station next question the German in the second round in German in the sixth do you recognize this today do you recognize the spirit of genital wood in any of today's directors I recognized it when I are going to the theater and you have an empty stage and then there's they play some music and there's a shaft of light and somebody comes on with a stool and sits and starts the piece I think oh yes well we did that sixty years ago yes in that way I do and that also becomes out of a John Barry and and and the design of the workshop remember the design of the workshop was European theater the workshop was European theater and no one was doing that and at that time from the forties from the end of the Second World War nobody was we were still into box sets and lots of footlights and people painting their faces the workshops through and and that's why it took a long time for her to be accepted because nobody really knew what they were doing because they didn't know anything dog needed there's a wonderful world seasons of the old witch and everybody went their knickers buy all this stuff and Brett came over and you thought yes but Workshop had been doing that for twenty thirty years and they were ignored by England and the Arts Council and the powers that be so yes there is an influence the translation did you find any limitations or advantages in translating taste of honey from theatre to film um yes because he did change singlet from one room to the Moors of Derbyshire but the flock of sheep yeah no I played I we played honey at Stratford I think for initial four weeks then it was redone before it came into town so I played that boy for almost a year and in the way John worked I knew that boy so well he could have stuck me on a wire on a balloon and I would have known what to do with him so no although it was all different no I I never had any difficulty in translate I'd had a lovely moment when I had to go into a maternity clinic and get the doll that the girl has and I remember it was a real maternity clinic and there were these Manchester girls and I came through the door they set up a camera they didn't tell anybody what was going to happen and then the girls were waiting to see the nurse and they didn't tell me but it set up the camera and I just came through the door and they little me with my little bag over my shoulder it was very cold up there and I came through this door and ten young pregnant girls just their eyes just went to the door and looked at me I didn't have to do anything I just crawled in but yes no no I had no difficulty doing all that what about relating to two different actresses I mean in the shape of Dora Bron and Rita toshing and was that a major shift for you yes yes because they were totally different but again because I knew that more so well I could adapt that was my my greatest task was adapting to their different performance as any actor would have to do good questions yes so in the middle row what would you like to tell us about Sheila Delaney Oh lovely Sheila oh she was lovely I'm oh dear Sheila she was so beautiful she was magnetic and also of course she had that wonderful voice it was such when Sheila was talking and nobody very rarely mentions Joan Littlewoods voice it was so beautiful even when she was telling you off and tearing a strip off you it was still very very beautiful and to hear the two of them was just magic yes she was yes I I was always our Marie always our Marie I loved it I I remember you set me off now uh on the first night and she scheana was in a theater and she'd been there quite a few times and she'd met my parents a few times and on that first night she came in and there was a seat vacant next to my mother and she said Oh maze can I come and sit next to you and my mother came darling and she said then are you feeling nervous Sheila and she said Oh mais not as nervous as your Marie yes pray time for one more question if we have a quick yes lady I'm not a question but lady it on the aisle which actor what advice would you give to younger actors and how do you feel that your theater discipline has fed into your film right what advice would Mary give to younger actors and how has the house your theater career fed into your film career two big questions yes enormous I wouldn't dare give any advice to a young actor except if you want to do it then you've got to hang in there and you have to suffer because for anyone it's it's those Joan always used to say are your so you're not in the next production that's good because she's now now you can study now you can go she'll say I want you to go to every art gallery in London I want you to look at those pictures I want you to read the place I want you to go to this it's a wonderful training period um when she first said it to me I thought but it was true and you just mustn't give him and of my discipline and why I think initially I could stomach Jones terrains and that is because although on an amateur basis I'd had a classical dance training and once you've done that discipline is second nature there we have it thank you very much before we go I mean I first want to thank Murray but just one second before we go there's someone waiting I know in the wings who's grown to love the part of Jeffrey which we can talk about tonight as much as you have and that person as you make of guest as the person is currently playing it in the national theatre production so would Harry who I hope is there like to come on here he is Harry Hepple thank you oh thank you both thank you very very much thank you

Channel: National Theatre

Views: 12,788

Rating: 4.9058824 out of 5

Keywords: Murray Melvin (TV Actor), A Taste of Honey, Shelagh Delaney, Joan Littlewood, Oh What a Lovely War, The Hostage, Michael Billington, Murray Melvin, Stratford East, Platforms, theatre, National Theatre, acting, theater, actors, musical

Id: 5YGWSNsh7EA

Length: 41min 9sec (2469 seconds)

Published: Thu May 08 2014