Although the blog covered the launch of www.stephen-joseph.org.uk in July, it recently received its first major press coverage. Unfortunately the article - which offers further insight into Stephen Joseph, his work and the website - has not been published online, so is presented here in a slightly revised and expanded form.
Half genius, half mad-man!
by Simon Murgatroyd
“Half-genius, half mad-man!”
This is how the playwright Alan Ayckbourn recalls Stephen Joseph; the man he considers the most significant influence in his life and a pioneer who had a profound - if often overlooked - impact on British theatre during the 1950s and 1960s.
This impact on theatre, on practitioners such as Alan Ayckbourn and Harold Pinter and on the town of Scarborough is brought to light in a new website exploring the life and achievements of Stephen Joseph.
www.stephen-joseph.org.uk highlights a theatrical trail-blazer who introduced professional theatre-in-the-round to the UK and was a profound inspiration to many who worked with him and who followed in his footsteps.
Having been frustrated in his attempts to promote these causes in London, he ended up in Scarborough in 1955 where, on the first floor of Scarborough’s public library, he opened the Library Theatre; home to the UK’s first professional in-the-round company and dedicated to promoting new writing a year before the launch of London’s Royal Court with a similar writing remit.
As to why he chose Scarborough of all places for the venture, in an interview with the Yorkshire Evening Post in July 1955, Stephen noted: “I don’t know, except that the town attracts a cross-section of the public during the summer and I personally like the place.”
Stephen was also a prolific writer and passionate about promoting theatre; one of the most significant sections of the website is its insight into Stephen’s thoughts by reproducing many of his articles about a variety of subjects alongside such as new theatre forms alongside other significant documents.
Stephen’s wider achievements are also explored including his influence on people as diverse as the playwright Harold Pinter, the actor Ben Kingsley and the influential Royal Shakespeare Company director Clifford Williams amongst others.
It is little known that Stephen Joseph not only encouraged Harold Pinter to continue playwriting after his first major flop, The Birthday Party, but he also gave Pinter his first professional job as a director with the second production of The Birthday Party, which rehearsed in Scarborough Library in 1958!
The cast included the young actor Alan Ayckbourn, who Stephen went on to encourage to both write and direct - thus launching a theatrical phenomenon still going strong more than five decades later - and who has become Stephen’s most prominent advocate.
The website has been created by Alan Ayckbourn’s archivist Simon Murgatroyd and who co-curates it alongside Dr Paul Elsam, a Teesside University lecturer and expert on Stephen Joseph whose book Stephen Joseph: Theatre Pioneer and Provocateur is published by Bloomsbury in October.
It also explores in considerable depth the first decade of the Library Theatre - still thriving today as the Stephen Joseph Theatre - under Stephen Joseph. This has been particularly helped by the support of Scarborough Library as the website includes reproductions of significant documents pertaining to the creation of the venue still held by the Library in its Stephen Joseph Theatre Collection.
The in-depth look at the Library Theatre also highlights the little-known fact that Stephen Joseph actually closed the venue in 1965, believing it could not overcome the limitations of the venue. Only the enthusiasm of Scarborough’s amateur community saved the theatre by staging an amateur season in 1966 before re-opening it as a professional venue in 1967, although without the involvement of Stephen Joseph, who was terminally ill by that time.
The Library Theatre and the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent - which Stephen created as the UK’s first permanent theatre-in-the-round venue - mark the most visible and long-lasting attempts by Stephen to make theatre-going more accessible; a subject the website will explore further in the future.
Even after his tragically early death in October 1967, Stephen’s impact was felt for many years afterwards - arguably most theatre-in-the-round and adaptable theatres in the UK owe a debt to Stephen’s ideas and work on design and lighting - particularly in the regions.
The website will expand in the future exploring in more depth his work on theatre design, his conflict with the British theatre establishment, his influential lecturing post at the University of Manchester as well as his role in founding the Association of British Theatre Technicians and the Society Of Theatre Designers.
The creation of www.stephen-joseph.org.uk has the support of Sir Alan and Lady Ayckbourn. It is run as part of Alan Ayckbourn’s official website www.alanayckbourn.net. The final words as to why Stephen Joseph deserves better recognition though belong to his protege, Alan Ayckbourn.
“Stephen was a great innovator, a great ideas man, and above all a great teacher.”
If you worked with Stephen Joseph or have memories of him, the website would be delighted to hear from you via: enquires@stephen-joseph.org.uk.
