Angus Wilson from Wikipedia, used on the same fair use basis as Wikipedia.
I wonder whether Angus Wilson would have seen the funny side of this?
As it happens I wasn’t working on Monday (the previous day). In fact, Janie and I had just got home from a specialist’s rather gloomy prognosis on my right hip (“got to go”) and were just heading off to play tennis…
…yes I know those two phrases seem incongruous, but if the hip is more or less worn out I might as well wear it out completely before it goes…
…when I picked up an utterly unexpected e-mail from the Royal Court Theatre.
…I found you from your website, as you wrote about Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant.
I’m reaching out from the Royal Court Theatre’s Living Archive, where we’re working on a series of events called Beyond the Library and I’m hoping you might be able to help us with a last-minute facilitation opportunity tomorrow at 5.30pm.
I know this is very out of the blue and very short notice, but we’d be grateful for your consideration…
Included was the script for The Mulberry Bush and a Facilitator Guide.
I did indeed write about Giant by Mark Rosenblatt:
It was obvious to me that someone had pulled out at the last minute and that the Royal Court was a bit desperate. There was a modest fee to be had, but not at the level that would get me out of bed unless I was interested/intrigued. I was interested/intrigued.
I picked up the phone and explained, truthfully, that my primary emotion was one of imposter syndrome at the thought of helping them with this. Yes, I am a seasoned facilitator, but normally for organisational/strategic topics, not the arts. Yes, I was familiar with Giant. And yes, as it happens, I have read some Angus Wilson in my time – probably more than 40 years ago. But I have never read or seen The Mulberry Bush.
I’m sure you’ll be great at it. Don’t worry about not being an arts facilitator. We’re looking for diversity in our pool of facilitators.
I suppose I offer diversity from your regular drama facilitator, but perhaps not the kind of diversity you are looking for in your stats.
Janie thought I’d get a buzz out of doing it and was prepared to put up with me hijacking the afternoon to prepare the event, so I said yes.
Janie even did some research for me, finding this excellent documentary about Angus Wilson:
I enjoyed reading The Mulberry Bush and then did some digging into how it was received when it was first shown at The Royal Court. Spoiler alert: it was not received well. I was reminded that I have heard of the play simply because it was the very first play that George Devine put on in 1956 when he started up the English Stage Company at the Royal Court. It actually felt like an extraordinary honour to be facilitating the Royal Court’s event on the topic of that seminal production.
Here is the review from The Birmingham Post:
Mulberry Bush Birmingham Post 06 Apr 1956, Fri The Birmingham Post (Birmingham, West Midlands, England) Newspapers.com
Here is Ken Tynan’s Observer review – sadly a bit difficult to read from the Newsppaers.com scan, but you should get the gist:
Tynan Mulberry Bush 08 Apr 1956, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Anyway, I got my facilitator notes ready and sent them across on the Monday evening – here they are if you want to read them, and then got on with my other activities for the next 20 hours or so.
Coincidentally, my other activities that Tuesday morning included going through my Autumn 1984 diaries, where I discovered my very first visit to the Royal Court. 8 December 1984, to see The Pope’s Wedding – what a cast! That Living Archive looks like a fabulous project, btw, and I shall no doubt be contributing observations from my 40 years or so of visiting The Royal Court.
When I got to the flat, I was able to locate my copy of Hemlock & After by Angus Wilson, but I didn’t have time to do more than skim it.
Still, I was one step ahead of my victims…I mean, the attendees, and that one step ahead seemed to be enough to get me through on the evening.
It was a pretty lively, bright bunch; a mixture of drama students, young folk new to working in theatre, writers and a few more senior folk who were just interested in having a book club style discussion.
Everyone contributed and I thought the quality of the discussion was very high. But then, what would I know? I’m not really an arts facilitator. The feedback was good, so I think it went well.
Also, I note, that the Beyond The Library series, which had plenty of spaces left for the November & December sessions when I looked on the Tuesday, has now (by Sunday) sold out. I understand that The Royal Court is considering extending the idea into 2025, so watch that space if you are interested in future such events.
It was hard work preparing, at such short notice, a discussion around a play I had never read or seen before. I fed back that 28 days would be a more suitable advanced notice than 28 hours under normal circumstances. But then, as Angus Wilson said in No Laughing Matter:
“Life isn’t just to be found, you have to work for it.”