London: N.p. [Royal Court Theatre], N.d. [1960]

59pp. mimeographed typescript bound in to manila folder, author, title and ownership signature inked to front wrapper. Small collection of correspondence laid in.

Heavily annotated throughout.

Folder wrappers worn, rubbed and with chips and tears to edges. Contents a little faded with age, but very well preserved.

GRAHAM CROWDEN'S WORKING COPY, WITH HIS OWNERSHIP SIGNATURE AND INKED NAME AND TITLE TO FRONT OF FOLDER, AND HIS EXTENSIVE ANNOTATIONS AND AMENDMENTS THROUGHOUT. WITH AN EXTENSIVE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN CROWDEN, GLYN THOMAS AND THE ROYAL COURT LAID IN.

The Keep, the comic novelist Gwyn Thomas's first play, was one of the outstanding successes of the Royal Court's long-running Productions Without Decor initiative, staged on Sunday nights. First performed on 14 August 1960, the play was an instant hit: 'I haven't heard such continuous, happy, feeling laughter in a playhouse for as long as I can remember.' (Robert Muller, Daily Mail, 15 August, 1960). After much delay, the show was given a full production in November the following year.

According to the original correspondence laid in to this script, at the time of the play's production Gwyn Thomas was suffering from a bout of ill health: 'The last three weeks have been about the most villainous I've known on this earth. {...] [W]hatever changes you wish to introduce have my approval and blessing.' (GT ALS to GC, 2 June 1960). For the next month the two worked on the play long distance, and Thomas was very satisfied with the result: 'I think you've shaped it most beautifully... You've carried the piece miles nearer a true theatricality. If you'd like to come down this coming week-end it will be perfectly convenient to us... (GT TLS to GC, 9 July 1960). Across the top of this letter Crowden has written: 'This visit is necessary, I think. Further small cuts an essential. G.C.'

On 28 July Thomas's wife Lyn wrote to secure some tickets for the approaching production, and let drop an acerbic aside about critics, Harold Pinter and Wales: '...the bloodhounds with the sharp teeth will be waiting to pounce on anything Welsh in London. That Pinter had to make his tramp [in The Caretaker], a verminous, scratching half-wit, a disgrace to humanity, a Welshman. He wouldn't dream of making such an objectionable object an Englishman, a Scotsman or an Irishman. He has to unload that scum on to the Welsh.' (GT TLS to GC, 28 July 1960).

The Keep was first performed on Sunday 14 August, 1960 and was enthusiastically received, although Crowden seems not to have had the best of evenings: 'Of course, you were not pleased with it and of course your nerves underwent a great deal of tension, but in the moments when you could relax I am sure you must have sensed how very well it went...' (John Blatchley, Assistant to Artistic Director George Devine, TL to GC, 15 August 1960). But after this initial success relations between Thomas and Crowden on one side and the Royal Court on the other soured. The length of time it took for the promised full production of the play to be staged infuriated Thomas and his wife. In a TLS to GC of 27 March 1961 Lyn Thomas writes: 'I cannot understand the delay introducing a play that actually made people laugh, and laughter is pure gold. We all long for laughter and I am sick to death of the depressing plays I have sat through in London. [...] I don't know what is happening at the Court but Gwyn is convinced that George [Devine] is not to blame for this shocking treatment. He has a very high regard for George and blames George's precious committee for any snags.' The play was eventually re-staged in November 1961 in a production directed by John Dexter. The theory that the delay was caused by the Court's reluctance to give a full production to an avowedly mainstream and light-hearted play is unproven, but plausible.

Crowden's script — for this production a director rather than actor — is heavily annotated throughout, with all stage directions underlined, and extensive amendments and blocking notes on most pages of text.

Alongside the correspondence quoted above, the following material is also laid in:

i) 2 typed drafts of a note to the play, one with handwritten amendments by Thomas, the other a carbon fair copy.
ii) TLS from George Devine to GC on Royal Court notepaper, 8 June 1960, expressing encouragement for the Thomas project, and hoping to work with GC again in the autumn.
iii) 1p. typed playtext with three handwritten corrections by Thomas.
iv) 2pp. pencilled notes by Crowden about the play, its setting and characters.
v) 1p. ALS from Sian James to GC, 18 July 1960, regretting that her husband, the actor Emrys James, will be unable to play Oswald in the play due to ill health.
vi) 1p. ALS from an unidentified friend to GC, 27 July 1960, regretting not being able to attend the show 'because for me Gwyn Thomas is one of the funniest writers in the business. So glad you like him too.'

A unique and comprehensive archive of the production of a Royal Court comedy -- a rare breed during the days of the Angry Young Men.