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Books

A Stratford Stalin: the nasty, aggressive and stupid world of Joan Littlewood

A review of Joan Littlewood: Dreams and Realities, by Peter Rankin. Shakespeare was too politically middle-of-the-road to make the grade and the second world war was 'boring'

8 November 2014

9:00 AM

8 November 2014

9:00 AM

Joan Littlewood: Dreams and Realities Peter Rankin

Oberon Books, pp.270, £14.99, ISBN: 9781783190843

If Stalin had been a theatre director he’d have resembled Joan Littlewood. What an outstandingly unpleasant woman she was — yet I must admit it was fun making notes on her spitefulness. Few escaped her scorn and derision: Sybil Thorndike (‘a shocking actress’), Rachel Kempson (‘she had a face like a scraped bone’), Laurence Olivier (‘not trying’), T.S.

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