大象传媒

In November 1940, because of the unstable war conditions the Old Vic theatre management decided to make its base Victoria Theatre in Burnley, Lancashire.
This quiet mill town became the home of one of the most famous theatre company鈥檚 in the country; in all but name the national theatre. Since Lilian Bayliss had rescued it from being a bawdy music hall where beer and debauchery were rife it had thrived as a teetotal house whilst offering Shakespeare鈥檚 plays to an increasingly appreciative audience. I was sad that I never met her; she died in November 1937 shortly before I became a student at the Old Vic School. Tyrone Guthrie was then the director of the company and I was to learn much from him and was always delighted to be in his stimulating productions.
So Burnley became the centre for rehearsing plays to be taken on tour after a run in the theatre for the benefit of the splendid audiences from the town and surrounding districts.
During the war years the theatre and other forms of entertainment were regarded as an essential to keep up the morale of the country, for many people were working long hours and sometimes double shifts; in the mines, the ammunition factories, on the land and in many voluntary organisations. Except for the Windmill theatre in London, which never closed, theatres were dark for a while until it seemed as if there was no imminent risk from air raids. From time to time the Old Vic Company returned to London but to the New Theatre as the Old Vic had been damaged.

The first tour to go out from Burnley was to the northern towns. It was while on tour that the Young Vic company was established by Esme Church who produced The Student Prince in order that the students should have a play of their own. This was played during matinees for school audiences as it had been realised that Shakespeare was rarely suitable. For instance when I was playing Jessica in the Merchant of Venice I was peppered with peas from a battery of pea shooters in the stalls, during the moonlight scene. Difficult to be romantic under the circumstances! Portia鈥檚 ladies fared worse in the earlier scenes as there was then a greater supply of peas!
When visiting Keithley with Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte, there was a nasty incident. During the a matinee, just after the interval with the tea cups still clinking, for tea was served to your seat in those days, Nova Pilbeam and I were on a sofa talking during a fairly tense scene when there was a loud crash and a heavy oak table at my elbow settled in pieces on the floor. It had been struck by the centre ball, made of heavy brass, of the chandelier hanging above me. I was struck a glancing blow by one of the branches. We tried to pretend nothing had happened by when my head began to drip blood and accompanied by gasps from the audience we curtseyed hand in hand and left the set as the curtain was brought down.
The stage was then swept clean, my head was mopped and plastered and to warm applause we resumed the scene. For a few days after that I seemed to be walking uphill but had no other bad effects.
The company visited the Parsonage where the Bronte family had lived and written so much. I could not understand how they achieved what they did in such confined and dark conditions. The freedom of the moor just on the doorstep, must have contributed so much to their lives.
One of the tours was to south Wales. The plays were Eurypide鈥檚 Medea directed by Sir Lewis Casson and Bernard Shaw鈥檚 Candida, the leading parts being played by his wife Dame Sybil Thorndike. Because we were to play mainly one night stands in miners halls the production and the set were of the simplest. The scenery consisted of screens that could be reversed for use in either play. Likewise the Chorus in Medea, often consisting of large groups of actors, was adapted for two only; a poor and a rich chorus, played by Ann Casson and myself respectively.
When I think of some of the words I spoke in that play, such as:

鈥淏ack streams the wave on the ever running river
Life, life is changed and the laws of tis o鈥檈r trod
Man shall be the affrighted the low liver, for man hath forgotten God.
And women, yea women, shall be terrible in story
The tales too meseemeth shall be other than of yore
For fear there is that cometh out of women and a glory
And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more鈥︹��

Seemed to encapsulate what I felt about the awfulness of war, so often caused by men but demanding more of men and women than they should ever have been asked to give.

The Miners hall, which was where we often played, was the heart of the community and we were humbled by the welcome and the hospitality we received everywhere in the valleys. Each night when the play ended we shared in the wonderful singing. Their glorious Welsh voices making harmonies to reach stars; they then shared a supper of delicious food with us. I grew too fat on the delicious Welsh cakes and griddle scones, which were pressed upon us. Yet the rations were the same as for the rest of the country. True, manual workers got extra and they needed it too with often a double shift to do. Men could be down the mine before daylight and not up again till after sunset during the winter months.
These working hours could apply to the pits, munitions and the steel works. One Sunday I went down a mine and on another day was taken over the Port Talbot Steel Works. What a contrast.
The chill dark of the pit with its eerie sounds as the mountain shifted about us, the creak of the pit-props overhead as well as the trickle of a stream could not have been more different from the steel works. Here was the roar of the furnaces then the flash of molten steel as it was drawn from the white heart and poured into moulds by men wearing the minimum of protective clothing, as they manipulated the liquid fire. A splash would have seared the flash to the bone.
In the rolling mill the steel, now a flexible sheet, whipped under rollers to become thin leaping metal, reaching in a high arc before disappearing to another floor. Here all was light, noise and flashing danger whereas the deep seams of the pit held a more silent sinister threat. I came away from both visits with such a feeling of admiration fro these workers.
I felt humbled to be performing to such remarkable people and glad that I was, even in a small way, helping to raise their spirits.

This account is just part of a book I am writing about my time in the theatre. I hope this and my novel Boatwife, set on the Thames, with be published shortly.
I much appreciate the information sent to me from Rachael Hassall, keeper of the Theatre Collection at the University of Bristol.

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