Joan Littlewood

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Joan Littlewood
Born	Joan Maud Littlewood 6 October 1914(1914-10-06) Stockwell, London
Died	20 September 2002 (aged 87) London
Occupation	Theatre director
Years active	1930–1975
Spouse(s)	1934–1950 Ewan MacColl
Domestic partner(s)	Gerry Raffles
Awards won Laurence Olivier Awards 1984 Special Award for contributions to the theatre Tony Awards Best Director (drama) (nominated) 1961 The Hostage Best Director (musical) (nominated) 1965 Oh! What a Lovely War

Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 - 20 September 2002) was a British theatrical director, famous for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop. At her influential peak in the 1950s and 1960s, she was a well-known international figure not only in the area of theatre but in politics as well.

Born in Stockwell, South London, she had trained as an actress at RADA but left after an unhappy start and moved to Manchester in 1934 where she met Jimmie Miller (better known as folksinger Ewan MacColl) and joined his troupe Theatre of Action. Littlewood and Miller were soon married. After a brief move to London, they returned to Manchester and set up the Theatre Union in 1936.

In 1941 the BBC banned her from broadcasting. The ban was lifted two years later when MI5 said she had broken off her association with the Communist Party. She was under surveillance by MI5 from 1939 until the 1950s. (Norton-Taylor 2008)

In 1945, after the end of World War II, Littlewood, her husband, and other Theatre Union members formed Theatre Workshop, touring for the next 8 years. Shortly afterwards, when Gerry Raffles joined the troupe, MacColl and Littlwood divorced (though they still worked together for many years) and Littlewood and Raffles were partners for the rest of his life. In 1953, Theatre Workshop took up residence at the Theatre Royal in east London, where it gained international fame, performing international plays across Europe and in the USSR. One of Littlewood's most famous productions was the British première of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1955), which she directed and also starred in the lead role. Her production of Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, a musical about the London underworld, became a hit and ran from 1959 to 1962. The works for which she is now best remembered are probably the satirical musical, Oh! What a Lovely War (1963) and Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey (1958), which gained great critical acclaim. Both were subsequently made into films. Many well-regarded television and stage actors began their professional careers at the workshop, including Yootha Joyce, Glynn Edwards, Harry H. Corbett, George A. Cooper, Richard Harris, Stephen Lewis, Howard Goorney, Brian Murphy, Murray Melvin and Babs Windsor. The last three were hired by director Ken Russell to appear with Twiggy in the film version of The Boyfriend

Littlewood and MacColl were married for nearly fifteen years when they divorced in 1950. They remained friends and collaborators for many years afterwards, and Joan was godmother to his two children. After her split with MacColl, her partner was Gerry Raffles, a founding member of Theatre Workshop who subsequently died in 1975.

After Raffles's death, Littlewood left Theatre Workshop and stopped directing. After a time of drifting she settled in France and became the companion of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the vintner and poet, and wrote his memoirs, Milady Vine. In the mid-1980s, she commenced work on her autobiography, which was published in 1994, entitled Joan's Book.

Film of Joan Littlewood rehearsing young actors is available on the DVD of Bronco Bullfrog.

Littlewood died, in 2002, of natural causes at the age of 87 in the London flat of Peter Rankin, her UK base for the previous 23 years^[1]

[edit] References

Norton-Taylor, Richard, "MI5 surveillance of Joan Littlewood during war led to two-year BBC ban", The Guardian, 4 March 2008

[edit] Bibliography

• Joan's Book: Joan Littlewood's Peculiar History As She Tells It (Methuen Drama, 1994) ISBN 0-413-77318-3
• Agit-Prop to Theatre Workshop, Political Playscripts, 1930-1950, edited by Howard Goorney and Ewan MacColl. (1986) ISBN 0-7190-2211-8
• Journeyman, an Autobiography, Ewan MacColl (1990) ISBN 0-283-06036-0

[edit] External links

• History of Theatre Workshop at Stratford East
• A tribute to Joan Littlewood by Jackie Fletcher
• BBC Obituary: Theatre's defiant genius 21 September, 2002
• Joan Littlewood (1914 - 2002) (The British Theatre guide)

Persondata
NAME	Littlewood, Joan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Littlewood, Joan Maud
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Theatre director
DATE OF BIRTH	1914-10-6
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stockwell, London
DATE OF DEATH	2002-9-20
PLACE OF DEATH	London