Tim Cribb

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Biographical note:  Born near Croydon aerodrome, raised on a farm in Lincolnshire, Tim Cribb is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. He has been a tourist disguised as a student in the USA, a teacher in France and Bermondsey, an undisguised student in Oxford, and a Lecturer in Glasgow, where he found his wife. From athletic acting at the Minack Cliff Theatre in Cornwall he has declined gently to directing student theatre and becoming Senior Treasurer of the Marlowe in 1988.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844714148
ISBN:  9781844714148
Author:  Tim Cribb
Title:  Bloomsbury and British Theatre
Series:  Salt Studies in Contemporary Literature and Culture
Product class:  BC
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  YATG
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  22-Sep-07
Extent:  192pp
Height:  228 mm
Width:  152 mm
Thickness:  11 mm
Weight:  288 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 14.99
Price:  USD 21.95
Rights:  World

Main description:  The story this book reveals has never been told before. Everyone knows about the Bloomsbury Group and their influence on art and style, on literature, life and manners, even on psychology and economics. But hitherto no one suspected that they have an equally profound influence on English theatre, especially on productions of Shakespeare, most especially on the foundation of the RSC. New research now traces the connections from William Poel and the Elizabethan Stage Society in the late Nineteenth Century to the foundation of the Marlowe Dramatic Society in Cambridge in 1907. Rupert Brooke is an early and active member and his friendships with Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey link the new Society to Bloomsbury. The link is developed after the First World War by another friend of Woolf and Strachey and legendary don of King’s College, George (“Dadie”) Rylands, who directs Marlowe Society productions from 1929 to 1966. It is yet another member of Bloomsbury and even more legendary don at King’s, Maynard Keynes, who builds the Cambrige Arts Theatre in 1936, managed by Rylands, where the Marlowe Society has performed ever since. This is the Theatre that Peter Hall haunts as a schoolboy and acts in as a student, in productions of Shakespeare directed by Rylands and (King’s College again!) John Barton. In 1959 Barton leaves King’s to join Peter Hall at the foundation of the RSC. From the same nursery of talent come Trevor Nunn, Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and many others, the so-called Cambridge Mafia. The continuity is so remarkable that in the perspective of this history one might almost call them the Bloomsbury Group in disguise.

Table of contents:
List of illustrations
Preface
by Ian McKellen
Chapter 1: Ghosts of Theatre Past: Before the Marlowe
Chapter 2: The Two Brookes and Old Bloomsbury
Chapter 3: New Bloomsbury: Enter Dadie Rylands
Chapter 4: Voices on Vinyl: The Argo Recordings
Chapter 5: From Bloomsbury to Stratford: Enter John Barton
Chapter 6: Cymbeline: the Boundary of Bloomsbury: Margaret Drabble and Derek Jacobi
Chapter 7: After Bloomsbury
Chapter 8: Ghosts of Theatre Future: Radical Potential
by Stephen Unwin
Appendix A Chronology of Productions 1907-2007
Appendix B Acknowledgements and sources

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Preface

I still relish a day in 1960 when, as undergraduate President of the Marlowe, I visited its founder, Justin Brooke, on his fruit farm and country estate near Bury St. Edmund’s. We spoke little of blank verse but a lot about eating, drinking and hare coursing!

In a university which does not have a Drama Department, Cambridge should cherish the continuity of its theatre institutions. As one of the oldest of these, the Marlowe has a special responsibility, grounded as it is in a devotion to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Beyond Cambridge, the Marlowe’s effect is felt in the professional theatre and those who care about understanding dramatic verse and how best to speak it. During my time, we were taught by George Rylands, whose influence on John Barton, Peter Hall and Trevor Nunn has been passed on to generations of actors, particularly members of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The Marlowe can be proud of its achievement. What was founded a century ago by a small group of privileged amateur undergraduate actors has long since developed into a powerhouse of theatrical expertise. Long may it flourish for the enjoyment of student, actors, theatre enthusiasts and the rest of us.

Ian McKellen
President 1960-61

Unpublished endorsement :  The Marlowe has had more influence on British theatre than, I think, anybody knows

Sir Peter Hall

Unpublished endorsement :  This is a most welcome addition not only to the history of theatre but also to the history of Bloomsbury, uncovering a relatively unknown aspect of its influential connections.

Frances Spalding