QUESTORIES
BERLIN VISIT
1964

A note for Questors Archives from Peter Whelan (May 2010).

This collection of six short plays performed by The Questors never got into the Questors archive previously because it was never a planned part of the programme but was a "one-off" instigated by James Saunders, West-end playwright and Questors member. After 50 years I still think it worth recording.

In 1963 James Saunders was invited by a Berlin arts body called the Literary Colloquium to tutor a kind of school for budding playwrights. For six months he took himself and his family over there and helped cultivate the writing destinies of five British and American young writers. The whole event was funded by the Ford Foundation and was intended to help stimulate the cultural life of West Berlin, then surrounded by the Soviet zone.

Jim decided he wanted a short play from each writer performed and invited myself, Sylvia Estop, June Judson and Myles McDowell, all Questors actors, to go over in the summer of 1964 for three weeks and see this done.

The third British writer was Piers Paul Read who had already written a first novel and has since become a successful novelist and TV broadcaster.

The two American writers were, firstly, Tom Cullinan, who would go on to script a Hollywood movie THE BEGUILED, starring Clint Eastwood. The other was Peter Bergmann, very much a crazy, goonish writer/performer who went on to run a road show across the States.

A hectic three weeks was spent producing the five plays and a concluding sketch by Jim Saunders himself.

The Berlin Wall, newly built, was very much in evidence. The costume hire, I recall, was within a few feet of it. My wife, ... Ffrangcon and sons, Tim and Larry, had to travel on the S-Bahn past East German guards with sub machine guns to get to the Colloquium.

We had to augment the cast with two actors from British army drama groups: ex-music hall entertainer, Military Police Corporal Stuart McCabe and a Lieutenant Phillip Goddard.

June Judson directed three of the plays; I directed two and produced overall.

So, six short plays were duly presented at the Forum Theatre, Kurfurstendammin September 1964 and we were billed as Questors Theatre.

Programme (Berlin)

Among the plays was Stoppard's one act play (Then titled: GUILDENSTERN AND ROSENCRANTZ) which would appear, magnificently expanded to full length, in 1967 at The National.

On our return to Questors we did a Studio (Then called the Stanislavsky room) performance to show what we'd been up to. Larry Irvin and Don Kincaid stepped in to replace the army actors we'd found in Berlin.

Programme (Ealing)
Press Cutting

A second invitation to Berlin followed, this time for a new play by Jim Saunders: NEIGHBOURS with Ffrangcon Whelan and Wylie Longmore. Along with it went NO QUARTER by Barry Bermange, with Ken Ratcliffe, Harry Ives, Paul Imbusch and Ned Gethings, both plays directed by Alan Clarke.

"Mrs. Ffangcon Whelan, the only actress in the party, says "Goodbye" to her two children before leaving on Saturday with the Ealing Questors Theatre group for Berlin and Paris. The party was led by director Alan Clarke, of 46, Ranelagh-road, Ealing. They presented " Neighbours," by James Saunders, of 11, Warwick-road, Ealing, and Barry Bermange's " No Quarter." The Berlin performance was transmitted live to television viewers. The party is due back on Sunday."

Neighbours & No Quarter
Programme
Press cuttings
Photos (No Quarter)

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