Description
Book SynopsisFrom its outset, the Liverpool Playhouse has been inextricably linked to the history of the city in which it was built. The impetus to create it came from the burgeoning civic pride engendered by the city’s growing wealth and its status as ‘second city of empire’; but its opening in 1911 was delayed by the transport strikes which hit the city. Over the following century, the history of the theatre, with all its ups and its downs, has reflected the history of Liverpool – and at times the city itself has appeared on stage as a key character. While often perceived as Liverpool’s ‘safe’ theatre, the Playhouse – from its inception as only the third repertory theatre in the country (following Manchester and Glasgow) to the dazzlingly creative period of the ‘Gang of Four’ (Bleasdale, Bond, Morrison and Russell) in the early 1980s, and up to the present day – has broken new ground and issued new challenges. Home over the years to many well known actors, including Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, Robert Donat, Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart, Rita Tushingham, Patricia Routledge and Richard Briers, the Playhouse remains one of the most vibrant British theatres.
Trade ReviewSo this is both a book that can be dipped into for interesting quotations and anecdotes and to look at photos of actors when they were much younger and a story that can be read through, but it can also be valuable as a resource for more serious students of regional theatre, showing how it has responded to a changing social and political climate over the last century. * The British Theatre Guide *
Liverpool Playhouse: A Theatre & Its City remains a fine and important work that should be enjoyed by experts and enthusiasts alike. * Theatre Research International, Volume 37/3 *
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The start of the experiment
- From trial to theatre
- Basil Dean, 1911-1913
- Laurence Hanray, 1913-14
- World War One and the Commonwealth
- William Armstrong, 1922-1944
- Maud Carpenter War and the Old Vic
- John Fernald, 1946-1949
- Gerald Cross, 1949-1951
- Willard Stoker, 1951-1962
- Bernard Hepton, 1962-63
- Ronald Settle and Joan Ovens
- David Scase, 1963-1967
- Kay Gardner, 1967-1969
- Antony Tuckey, 1969-1975
- Studio 1
- Leslie Lawton, 1975-1979
- William Gaunt, 1979-1981
- Gang of Four, 1981-1984
- Studio 2
- Jules Wright, 1985-1986
- lan Kellgren, 1986-1991
- 'It's too good to lose'
- Bill Kenwright, 1991-1996
- Studio 3
- Richard Williams, 1996-1998
- Jo Beddoe, 1999-2003
- Gemma Bodinetz and Deborah Aydon, 2003-
- Bibliography
- Index
