THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
The King's Head Theatre Pub is dead, long live the King's Head Theatre. On August 13, 2023 the famous pub theater on Upper Street, Islington in North London closed its doors with a gala to celebrate its 53 years. There's a happy ending however because it is expected that by December it will reopen, just next door, in a brand new space as part of the Islington Square development. It will comprise a 500-seat theater, a 50-seat cabaret space and its own bars.
In late 1970 an eccentric American, Dan Crawford, took over the management of this pub in the then down-at-heel neighborhood and converted the small back room into a theater space. Later they started serving dubious dinners with Dan claiming he imported 'dinner theater' to the UK. This space, although tiny, had an outsized influence on the development of British Theatre.
There never was any money, or Arts Council funding for that matter, and the roof was permanently leaking. I recall a Philadelphia Here I Come where the dialogue was drowned out by heavy rain hitting a corrugated iron patch on the roof, all of which enhanced the wet west of Ireland ambiance of that play.
At the end of every performance Dan himself would pass round a bucket for donations. The conditions were spartan and actors had to clamber over each other in the one small narrow dressing room. But yet, stars of today like Richard E Grant, Joanna Lumley, Sam West, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves all got their breaks there.
Transfer success came quickly, and Dan averaged one West End transfer per year, which was not a bad innings, as well as six to Broadway. He tried everything from new writing (Steven Berkoff, Stephen Jeffreys, Bryony Lavery, Timberlake Wertenbaker) to lost musicals to judicious revivals of neglected work. His 1976 staging of Rattigan's The Browning Version contributed to the critical redemption of a then much maligned playwright. Comedy wasn't overlooked either and stars such as Victoria Wood and Maureen Lipman made a splash there.
The pub theater's closing night was a celebratory gala comprising two sections: stars returning with short excerpts of their old hits, and a second half which showcased Queer performance artists who've made the space their own in recent years.
Linda Marlowe presented a moving scene from Christopher Wilkinson's play about Soho sex workers, Dynamo (1971). Dame Janet Suzman recreated her role in Athol Fugard's classic Hello and Goodbye (1973) which also starred Ben Kingsley and transferred to the West End. Then, Mark Gatiss and fellow cast members recreated a poignantly witty scene from the theater's revival of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band (1997 and 2016). Finally, Annabel Leventon regaled us with stories about the trials of her time there appearing in Spokesong (1976), another hit transfer.
Bang up to date we then had a trio of Queer performers presenting their 'response' to some of the old hits. Amy-Rose Edlyn presented 'Plant Based P*ssy' a new take on The Vagina Monologues. Saul Boyer and Lowell Belfield did an artful deconstruction of Stoppard's Artist Descending a Staircase (1988) and Drag King opera singer Freddie Love, in red latex, gave us an in your face take on Carmen and Samson and Delilah. After Dan passed away in 2005 the theater became for a time a venue for London's Little Opera House and their hit La Bohème transferred to the West End and won an Olivier Award.
The surprise guest (in Act 2) made the biggest impression though, when Steven Berkoff himself appeared and make a passionate and very personal speech about how crucial the King's Head was in getting him established. Interestingly he commented how it was American expats like Dan, as well as Jim Haynes at the Traverse in Edinburgh, who shook up the fusty world of British Theatre in the '70s. A great example of cross fertilization across the pond.
Keep an eye out for the King's Head Theatre's re-birth in a few months.
