Shut up – or do something

Rosie Al-Mulla, Assistant Archivist, University of Stirling

My first foray into Lindsay Anderson’s archive was to catalogue his work directing theatre. Of the many plays he directed, his first was The Waiting of Lester Abbs as part of a season of Sunday night productions for new writers and directors at the Royal Court Theatre. Writing for Encore not long after this debut, Anderson reflected on what he considered to be the moribund state of theatre and cinema in Britain. His response to the predicament at hand was perhaps characteristically brusque – “Only two courses are honourable: shut up – or do something”. 

And though Anderson’s most prevalent reputation is that of a film director, there are 40 theatre productions evidenced in his archive, a testament to his endeavour to ‘do something’ about British theatre over a span of 35 years. He championed new writing and plays that hadn’t yet reached London, shaking up the theatre scene with experimental shows such as Jazzetry (1959), a blend of jazz music and theatrical performance. Even on the odd occasion that Anderson turned his hand to the classics, he could not be content resting on any laurels (his or Shakespeare’s), making edits to the script of his 1964 production of Julius Caesar and defending the significant and controversial rewrites Robert Graves made to Much Ado About Nothing just a year later. 

Anderson wrote of his experience directing theatre “I won’t pretend that, as we worked, cinematic parallels didn’t present themselves to me” and it is perhaps these parallels that caused Anderson to recreate some of his work in the theatre for the screen – both big and small. In Celebration which was originally performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1969 was remade as a film in 1974 and Home, which premiered at the Theatre Royal, Brighton in 1970, was filmed for TV in 1971. 

It is Anderson’s endless energy for ‘doing something’ which strikes me so often when working with his archive. That and his knack for seeking new angles unpretentiously, always approaching his material with a ‘spirit of discovery rather than reverence’.