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The Stratford Roundhouse – the RSC’s forgotten theatre

In his book, Other Spaces: New Theatre and the RSC, Colin Chambers discusses the history of the Other Place theatre and briefly mentions ‘a group formed around actors Martin Bax and Hugh Keays Byrne’ in Stratford in 1970. They took the name ‘Chaff and Bran’ and converted the ‘rotunda in the gardens behind the main [RSC] theatre into an auditorium’ called ‘The Little Roundhouse’.

Dr Abigail Rokison-Woodall, at the Shakespeare Institute, determined to find out more and discovered Keays Byrne was an actor living in Australia and Martin Bax was living in Frome, where he’d become the town’s Mayor and founded the Frome Festival. Bax said the reference in Chambers’ book is not only inaccurate but underplays the scale, ambition and impact of the Stratford Roundhouse and of the role he took in founding it.

So Dr Rokison-Woodall decided to team up with Bafta and Emmy award-winning documentary maker Andrew Smith and capture Bax’s story and the story of the Stratford Roundhouse – the RSC’s first studio theatre that influenced both the founding of Trevor Nunn’s Studio Theatre in 1973 and its successor, The Other Place, in 1974.

Martin Bax's story

Below are online galleries of photographs, programmes, press cuttings and other items from the two years the Stratford Roundhouse was active, which were kept in Bax’s archive.

Plastic Birthday

John Kane’s Plastic Birthday was performed at the Stratford Roundhouse on 29-30 November, and subsequently at the King’s Head theatre in London. The cast was: Helen Mirren, Barry Stanton, Glynne Lewis, John Kane, Gordon Bennett, Tony McVey.

Plastic Birthday tells the story of Marion Thompson (played by Helen Mirren), a secretary in a printer’s office, who becomes pregnant by 19-year-old type-setter, Ronald Mace (played by Glynne Lewis). Having left home, Marion moves into a flat with three other girls. When the baby is born, she takes a plastic bag from her bedside table, smothers the baby and leaves the body in a public lavatory.

The story was told as a sort of review, through a series of songs, sketches and monologues, with John Kane as the compere of the show. Barry Stanton played the remaining roles: a nurse friend of Marion’s, a female lavatory attendant and Marion’s mother.

The Stratford Roundhouse building

These photographs show the Stratford Roundhouse as it was in 1970. The round building was the theatre space, and the colonnaded area the foyer. The glass doors on the rotunda were opened up for music concerts and the audience sat on the grass.

The building was listed by Historic England as ‘Summerhouse in Avonbank Garden’. It had originally been one of the garden buildings of Avonbank, a house that stood on the banks of the

river that was demolished in the early twentieth century. The building later became a brass rubbing centre. But when Bax converted it into a theatre, it had been a disused tea-room.

Production and event programmes

These printed programmes are for productions and events staged at the Roundhouse in 1970.

These were:

  • Convolutions (A Late Night Revue) Saturday 7 and Wednesday 11 November
    Dir. Michael Bodganov
    Cast: Richard Jones-Barry, Terrence Hardiman, Sara Kestelman, Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Allan Mitchell, Barry Stanton, Patrick Stewart, Terence Taplin.

  • Iago Friday 20 to Saturday 21 November
    Dir. Angela Hopkins
    Devisers: Julian Beech, Carol Britton, Peter Cenz, Margaret Davies, Bridget Laurance, David MacKenzie, Tony McVey, Mary Loveridge, Emma O’Neill, Stephen Taylor Cast: Richard Jones Barry, Laurence Burns, Michele Copsey, Ralph Cotterill, Celia Quicke, Jeremy Sinden, Allan Watkins.

  • Concert Songs and Duos with Lute and Guitar by Martin Best and Edward Flower Sunday 22 November

  • Take a Life Wednesday 25 and Friday 27 November
    Dir. Sebastian Shaw
    Cast: Peter Needham, Brenda Bruce, Terrence Hardiman, Eileen Beldon, Frances de la Tour

  • Plastic Birthday Sunday 29 Monday 30 November
    Dir. John Kane
    Cast: Helen Mirren, Barry Stanton, Glynne Lewis, John Kane, Gordon Bennett, Tony McVey

  • Lunchtime recital (music by Telemann, Besozzi, Boismortier and Vivaldi) Tuesday 1 December
    Musicians: Adrian Brett, Anthony Aspden, Michael Tubbs, Roger Hellyer

  • Where You Go When You Come (Poetry Evening) Wednesday 2 and Friday 10 December
    Dir. Cicely Berry
    Cast: Patrick Barr, Martin Bax, Cicely Berry, Brenda Bruce, Hugh Keays Byrne, Frances de la Tour, Clement McCallin, Celia Quicke, William Russell, Terence Taplin

  • It Never Pays: A Play in Sound And Light Sunday 6 December
    Dir. Gay Rorke
    Cast: Mary Rutherford, Anthony Langon, Sara Kestelman, Estelle Kohler, Jeremy Sinden

  • Death Watch Monday 7 and Wednesday 9 December. Presented by Cambridge University Mummers

  • Frederico Garcia Lorca: A Collage of his Poems Friday 11 December
    Dir: Cicely Berry (devised by Trader Faulkner)
    Cast: Alan Howard, Sheila Burrell, Trader Faulkner, Ben Kingsley, Celia Quicke, Terence Taplin.

  • View programmes gallery on Flickr

Press cuttings

Here are a series of press articles from 1970 about The Stratford Roundhouse.

Three are from the Birmingham Post; one is from the Stratford Herald and one is a Guardian review of Plastic Birthday, from the transfer of that production to the King’s Head Theatre.

Memos and forms

The most extensive collection in Bax’s archive is of memos and forms. The collection includes:

  • The RSC distribution list for correspondence about the Stratford Roundhouse
  • Memos from Bax to the company, introducing the new theatre space
  • Membership forms from those who applied to be members of the Stratford Roundhouse, detailing ideas for the productions and events. Members who completed forms include Frances de la Tour, Terrence Hardiman, Ben Kingsley, Trevor Nunn and Patrick Stewart.
  • View memos and forms gallery on Flickr

Roundhouse Film Society

In the process of setting up the theatre space, Bax found a pair of cinema projectors. He decided that when there was no live show in the Stratford Roundhouse, he would screen key films in the theatre’s conference room.

These documents include: a list of films recommended to Bax by his friend John; a list of the films that were screened in the conference room in 1970; the Society’s constitution; the membership application form; and the society’s accounts.

Membership cards

These images show the membership cards for the Theatre (T) and the Film Society (C). The red film society membership card belonged to Patrick Stewart.