This show was memorable for me because it was the first time I can recall being reduced to tears in the theatre. There have been many occasions since ( Les Miserables and Billy Elliot spring to mind ) but at that performance I was quite surprised, as a cynical teenager, to find myself sobbing in the balcony.
This may have been the last time these two theatrical knights worked together. The programme contains an interview in which they detail many of their joint performances.
I saw the show at the Apollo after its transfer from the Royal Court. The author, David Storey, seems little remembered now but was very popular at the time, his recent plays in the west End being The Contractor and The Changing Room. Director Lindsay Anderson was another man of the moment.
As was usual at the time, the programme is full of ads for cigarettes, booze and restaurants. Much more interesting to me are the ads for other shows running in the West End at the time. Val Doonican, Norman Vaughan and Moira Anderson were at the Palladium. Not my idea of a great night out. Alan Ayckbourn has to be described as ‘author of Relatively Speaking‘ to plug his new show How The Other Half Loves. I guess he was not yet the theatrical legend that he later became. Unbelievably, in 1970, the Black and White Minstrels are still at the Victoria Palace with their show that really belonged to another age.
Programme Home David Storey