Stephen Joseph

Stephen Joseph was an extraordinarily passionate and knowledgeable man who inspired those around him. He had a vast knowledge of theatre and drama – as witnessed by his extraordinarily varied career in British theatre – and his protégé Alan Ayckbourn summed this aspect of his career up quite succinctly: “He knew more than any person I’ve ever known about playwriting, when it came to talking about it, and he knew more about directing than any living person, and I suspect he knew an awful lot about acting: he certainly managed to talk about it very lucidly and entertainingly and interestingly, although he must have been the World’s worst actor.”¹

Stephen Joseph was born in London on 13 June, 1921, the son of the noted actress Hermione Gingold and the publisher Michael Joseph; they divorced in 1926 and Stephen would always have a difficult relationship with his father. He was educated at Burstow in Surrey and then at Clavesmore School, Dorset. In 1937, after only two months at sixth form, Stephen became the youngest person to be accepted at the Central School of Speech and Drama, from where he graduated in 1939 with a First Class certificate.

By all accounts, Stephen was an exceptional student but his passion for the theatre was interrupted by World War II. He served in the Royal Navy from 1941 to 1946 and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during a clandestine mission in the Adriatic Sea. After the war, Stephen resumed his studies, going to Jesus College in Cambridge, where he gained an MA in English Literature. He was also a member of the renowned Footlights society for whom he directed two performances in 1947 and 1948. The latter production, La Vie Cambridgienne, was also recorded by the BBC and broadcast on 28 July 1948 with Stephen credited as both writer and stage director.

His professional theatrical career began in November 1948, when he joined the Lowestoft Repertory Theatre as a director. From there, he went to the Frinton Summer Theatre, where he acted as director, designer and business manager. While there, he had his first experience of theatre-in-the-round when he saw a touring amateur company performing A Phoenix Too Frequent, under the direction of Jack Mitchley. Stephen said he left the play so excited, he had “a bee beginning to buzz at the back of my mind.”

Stephen returned to education as a tutor at the Central School Of Speech And Drama in 1949. In 1951, he was granted unpaid leave to visit America to study for a degree in drama at the University of Iowa, majoring in playwriting. He was also awarded a grant by the Elmgrant Trust to record new theatre buildings in the United States, through which he was exposed to several purpose-built theatre-in-the-round venues². Stephen was inspired by what he saw and returned to England passionate about new playwriting and theatre-in-the-round.

Back in England, he resumed tutoring at Central, but with two pre-occupations; encouraging and teaching new writing and forming a theatre-in-the-round company. For the former, he set up an evening course “The Art Of The Playwright”, open to the public and from which he would eventually draw the four playwrights that would open the first season in Scarborough. Towards the latter, he founded Studio Theatre Ltd – the first professional theatre-in-the-round company in the country. In 1955, he began a summer season of performances in the concert room at Scarborough’s Public Library – called the Library Theatre - and in the winter, began a series of winter performances on Sundays in London called the Studio Theatre Club. Stephen would be involved in theatre-in-the-round in Scarborough until his death in 1967. From 1956, Studio Theatre Ltd began seasons of winter tours, primarily visiting towns without civic theatres with the main intention of finding a permanent home for theatre-in-the-round.

Throughout this period, Stephen worked hard to secure funds to finance his project. This ranged from selling coal door-to-door to working on children’s entertainment for the ITV television company in 1956. The latter work, he later conceded, was hard and not terribly rewarding, but the pay was good which was essential at that time.

Stephen was also an enthusiastic and talented theatre architect and in 1961 he helped found the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT), which would contribute much work, ideas and research to new theatre spaces in the UK – particularly with regard to schools and universities. This would lead to the formation of the Society of Theatre Consultants in 1964, which Stephen also helped found. In 1962, Stephen converted an abandoned cinema in Stoke-on-Trent into the Victoria Theatre, the first permanent theatre-in-the-round in the UK. Studio Theatre Ltd relocated there with Associate Directors Peter Cheeseman running the theatre. The same year saw Stephen appointed as the first fellow of the Department of Drama at Manchester University; this was intended to be a year-long sabbatical for study and teaching, but at the end of the year Stephen decided he did not want to leave the university. He was appointed to a lectureship at the university and in 1963 created and ran a postgraduate diploma in drama; he was instrumental in helping to create the department of drama. The running of the Victoria Theatre passed into the sole hands of Peter Cheeseman, while in Scarborough, Stephen formed a new company, Scarborough Theatre Trust, to continue professional productions at the Library Theatre.

No sooner had this happened, Stephen came to blows with the town council over a perceived lack of support for the Library Theatre. Stephen urged the council to invest in the venue in a passionate letter in 1963. Aggrieved by a lack of response to this two years on, Stephen announced the Library Theatre would close at the end of the 1965 season. The Theatre Manager Ken Boden persuaded Stephen to allow him to stage an amateur season in-the-round in 1966 and professional theatre resumed in 1967 when the town council offered more concrete support for the venue. In 1966, a much publicised quarrel between Stephen and Peter Cheeseman regarding the future of the Victoria Theatre developed, which would eventually lead to the Victoria Theatre being taken over by a local trust and the end of Studio Theatre Ltd. In hindsight, it seems no coincidence these events occurred as Stephen was made aware he was terminally ill in 1965. He showed great resilience though, despite being bed-bound, and wrote several books: Theatre In The Round, New Theatre Forms and The Story of The Playhouse In England – he had already published a book entitled Scene Painting and Design in 1964 alongside several pamphlets and numerous articles on theatre design and forms. He also lived long enough to see Alan Ayckbourn achieve his first bona fide West End success, Relatively Speaking.

Stephen died at the tragically young age of 46 on Wednesday 4 October 1967 at his home in Scarborough. He had been working practically until the last, when cancer claimed his life. His legacy and name live on though in the theatres he created - the Stephen Joseph Theatre and the New Vic Theatre - and also through the playwrights he encouraged and inspired such as Alan Ayckbourn and Harold Pinter.

¹ Ian Watson “Conversations With Ayckbourn” (first edition) pp.39
² Stephen discusses and also provides illustrations of many of these buildings in his books “Theatre In The Round” and “New Theatre Forms”