Ewan MacColl: theatre legend

Ewan MacColl, originally James Henry Miller, was monitored by MI5

Salford folk legend Ewan MacColl is well known for his music, but his radicalism stretched much further.

Alongside his protest singing, he was also a theatrical pioneer.

In fact, in his early career, MacColl worked as a playwright and actor with the Socialist leaning Clarion Players.

He would later go on to found the Theatre Workshop, a radical troupe which looked to involve both cast and audience in the drama, with his first wife, Joan Littlewood.

It was in the early 1930s, shortly after leaving school, that Ewan, then called James Henry Miller, became involved with political activism, taking part in unemployment campaigns and supporting the mass trespasses which led to public access to private land.

These actions brought him to the attention of the local police and, in turn, MI5, who opened a file on him because of his Communist views.

From Action to Union

Such things didn't halt his activities. In 1931, he and other members of the Clarion Players formed the agit-prop (a Communist theatre style) 'Red Megaphones', which would become 'Theatre of Action' three years later.

Joan Littlewood was also considered subversive

It was in the troupe that he met Joan Littlewood, who had recently relocated from London and would soon become Miller's wife.

Together, they attempted to return to the capital, but the move didn't work out and the couple returned to Manchester, where they another incarnation of their troupe, Theatre Union, in 1936.

This new company soon had a reputation for its radical approach and topics and four years later, shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, their performance of The Last Edition - a "living newspaper", describing the events of the past decade through the eyes of a socialist - was halted by the police.

Such was the public opinion and outcry towards socialism and communism at the time that Miller and Littlewood were fined and bound over for two years - which effectively banned their theatre work.

After the war

Browned Off The colonel kicks the major and the major has a go, He kicks the poor old captain who then kicks the nco, And as the kicks get harder the poor private you can see, Gets kicked to ruddy hell to save democracy Written shortly before desertion from the Army

The war saw the disbanding of the Theatre Union, with Miller enlisting in the army in July 1940.

Interestingly, he deserted the following December and went into hiding, which should have led to action being taken against him.

Yet when he came back to prominence in 1946, he was never prosecuted.

Instead, he and Littlewood went back to the theatre, starting their final collaboration, the influential Theatre Workshop.

A more formal company

Where their previous troupes had been free-flowing, free-thinking companies where responsibilities and roles were shared, Theatre Workshop took a more formal approach.

Joan Littlewood was made the sole director and Miller, now known as Ewan MacColl, was the researcher and dramatist.

As before, the Theatre Workshop grew in reputation, staging new plays including Shelagh Delaney's debut A Taste Of Honey in 1958, which premiered in a London theatre.

Leaving the theatre

But the end of MacColl's involvement with Theatre Workshop was on the horizon.

The break between MacColl and the company finally came in 1953, when the Theatre Workshop decided to make the move to London and settle there.

Ewan's picture in an MI5 file

Ewan was opposed to the move so, unable to win the argument for remaining in Manchester, he left to concentrate on his folk singing.

The move followed MacColl and Littlewood's divorce, though the pair remained friends and collaborators.

Ewan did continue to write drama, particularly for the radio - he had been a radio actor since the early 1930s - but his protest-singing star was rising and as a result, his place in history as a music legend was sealed.

But that place would never have come about without his theatrical past, as his early reputation as a singer and songwriter was based on the songs that he wrote to include in his plays.

In fact, one of his most famous compositions, Dirty Old Town, was written to disguise a scene change in his 1949 play, Landscape With Chimneys.

The life and work of Ewan MacColl is remembered at a Memorial Concert at the University of Salford on Tues 27 Oct.