Littlewood, Joan Maud

▪ 2003

      British theatre director and writer (b. Oct. 5/6, 1914, London, Eng.—d. Sept. 20, 2002, London), was a pioneer of radical theatre whose experimental productions, often performed by and devoted to the working class, helped bring about a revolution on the British stage in the 1950s and '60s. She combined improvisational technique with political content to examine social issues of the day, and her innovative direction brought prominence to the works of such playwrights as Brendan Behan and Shelagh Delaney. Littlewood won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but dropped out and began making her way to Liverpool, hoping to go from there to the U.S. She got only as far as Manchester, however. There she joined (1934) the Theatre of Action, founded by writer and poet Jimmie Miller, who was later known as Ewan McColl and whom Littlewood married; that company was succeeded (1936) by Theatre Union and reestablished as the touring Theatre Workshop after World War II. Littlewood's marriage failed, and she began a relationship with the new company's administrator, Gerry Raffles, which lasted until his death in 1975. In 1953 Theatre Workshop took over the run-down Theatre Royal in a poor area of London known as Stratford East and began restoring it. With productions that included Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Schweik (1955), Behan's The Quare Fellow (1956) and The Hostage (1958), Delaney's A Taste of Honey (1958), Frank Norman and Lionel Bart's Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (1959), and Sparrers Can't Sing (1960; filmed 1962, with Littlewood as director), the theatre attracted attention and ever-growing audiences, and many productions made successful transfers to the West End. Littlewood scored her greatest success with the satiric Oh, What a Lovely War (1963), which staged World War I songs in a music hall setting to lay waste to the glorification of war. It was translated into several languages and, in 1969, filmed. Littlewood's later successes included Mrs. Wilson's Diary (1967), The Marie Lloyd Story (1967), The Projector (1970), and So You Want to Be in Pictures (1973). Following Raffles's death, however, Littlewood moved to France, where she lived most of the rest of her life in relative seclusion. Littlewood's autobiography, Joan's Book, was published in 1994.

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