Ian McKellen, Cambridge, 1961

F R Leavis
© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

ADC Theatre, Cambridge
Copyright Cambridge2000.com

George Rylands

There is to this day still no drama department at Cambridge University.  Had there been when I arrived at St. Catharine’s in 1958, it’s doubtful I would have applied, as I then had no intention of acting professionally and was happy to be reading English Literature.  This involved University lectures from such academic stars as C.S. Lewis (the “Narnia” books) and F.R. Leavis (“Scrutiny” and other critical studies.

I sat at Leavis's feet in  his small study group at Downing College — alongside Trevor Nunn — but presented my weekly essay to the patrician attention of T. R. Henn, whom Leavis defamed as “the red-faced brigadier of King’s Parade”.   Leavis was scathing about actors’ interpretations of Shakespeare, preferring to read the plays rather than see them staged.

Tom Henn, indeed an ex-brigadier, loved Yeats and Shakespeare (same here), though he warned me not to let undergraduate theatre take me too much from my studies.  With a rebellion that was out of  character, I ignored him and managed 21 productions in Cambridge 1958-61.  A couple of these transferred briefly to London and most were reviewed by national critics, often themselves Oxbridge graduates.  Agents scouted Cambridge, and Peter Cook even had two revues running in the West End.  The BBC held an annual party to encourage us to work in their news and drama departments. Were we privileged!

The University authorities were also friendly toward us. They provided a senior member to oversee the Amateur Dramatic Club and the other acting groups, whilst the influential George "Dadie" Rylands ran the Marlowe Society, of which I was President in my final year.  By that time I was bent on going professional, like the rest of that community of like-minded young people who made Cambridge as good as any drama school.

Dadie was scathing about our ambitions but his eyes twinkled. We knew he had directed Gielgud and Ashcroft in the West End and, over my time, he brought to Cambridge them and other professional actors to record all of Shakespeare’s plays with undergraduates in support.  Dadie the declared amateur always thought of us would-be professionals as his “naughty boys”.

Seeing amateur productions and acting in a few really good ones so early on at school and the Little Theatre as well as at Cambridge, I’m left well aware of the size and enthusiasm of the amateur theatre movement in UK, particularly The Little Theatre Guild. They’ve just made me their Patron and being an amateur, that is lover, of theatre, I couldn’t be more pleased. — Ian McKellen, December 2006