As Hull has been designated 'City of Culture' 2017 I wish to publish my article for the book 'Huddled Together' which was a celebration of 50 years of the Drama Department at Hull. I would like to pay tribute to Michael Walton, now Emeritus Professor of Drama and to Don Roy who was Head of Drama when I was a student at Hull. Both of them were influential in my development as an actor, writer and director and I shall be eternally grateful to them.
RECALLING HULL UNIVERSITY DRAMA
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DEPARTMENT 1964 -1967 by Michael Theodorou
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The odd thing about the past is that it has a way of finding
you in the most unusual ways. On a recent holiday I came
across a history lecturer who had been my contemporary at
Hull in the mid sixties (though we’d never met) and then the
following year while on holiday I met a nuclear physicist
(going by the name of Gordon Brown!) who had been a
student at Hull in the mid fifties!
A few months later I chanced to look at the Hull University
website and was delighted to see that Mike Walton was listed
under Drama Department staff as Emeritus Professor of
Drama! After some hesitation, thinking he’d never
remember me, nevertheless I decided to drop Mike an email
and almost by return I had a communication in which he
named the play and the role I’d played for him in 1966!
I should add that I wasn’t officially a member of the Drama
Department as I was supposed to be studying for a
French/Spanish Joint Honours degree but Mike had seen me
in a production of Camus’ play ‘Caligula’ and came up to
me afterwards saying something like ‘ it was a terrible
production but you were the best thing in it and I’d like you
to play Tolen in a production of ‘The Knack’ that I’m doing
for the Drama Department’.
I remember the Drama Department performance space at
that time was an old gym which seemed an odd venue for
performing plays but the department was in its infancy and
was presumably grabbing any space it could find. I
remember there was a full lighting rig and a stage at one end
with a full box set for ‘The Knack’. I remember going to see
at least two other of Mike’s productions in the old gym and
they were uniformly brilliant. I also recall seeing an
adaptation of a Russian play done by an outside company.
I was very quickly smitten by the acting bug and felt very
much at home within the drama department who seemed to
have the best parties on the University campus! I was asked
to see my Head of Faculty (Professor Rees?) shortly after my
appearance in ‘The Knack’ who told me in no uncertain
terms that I was at Hull to study languages and not to ‘act in
plays’! I think I’d got behind with my essays and someone
had reported me to him.
Another event I remember was an appearance at the
University by the actor Micheal Mac Liammoir in his one
man Oscar Wilde show. This was performed not in the old
gym but on the stage used by the University Drama Society
(where we’d done ‘Caligula’) on the top floor of one of the
Faculty buildings. I’d never seen anything like it before and
certainly not a man who obviously enjoyed playing all the
female parts as well as the male. The gossip that came to me
from backstage was that Micheal was wildly camp and kept
calling Mike Walton his little French maid – even though
Mike had a full beard at the time!
There was also at that period of time I seem to recall a
gentleman in the library called Philip Larkin who I was told
was a poet!
These reminiscences come 45 years after the events
described so they may be a bit hazy but I recall my
association with the Drama Department as being a key to my
future development as actor, director and writer for which I
shall always be grateful.
Michael Theodorou
RECALLING HULL UNIVERSITY DRAMA
-------------------------------- ---------------------
DEPARTMENT 1964 -1967 by Michael Theodorou
----------------------------------- ------------------------
The odd thing about the past is that it has a way of finding
you in the most unusual ways. On a recent holiday I came
across a history lecturer who had been my contemporary at
Hull in the mid sixties (though we’d never met) and then the
following year while on holiday I met a nuclear physicist
(going by the name of Gordon Brown!) who had been a
student at Hull in the mid fifties!
A few months later I chanced to look at the Hull University
website and was delighted to see that Mike Walton was listed
under Drama Department staff as Emeritus Professor of
Drama! After some hesitation, thinking he’d never
remember me, nevertheless I decided to drop Mike an email
and almost by return I had a communication in which he
named the play and the role I’d played for him in 1966!
I should add that I wasn’t officially a member of the Drama
Department as I was supposed to be studying for a
French/Spanish Joint Honours degree but Mike had seen me
in a production of Camus’ play ‘Caligula’ and came up to
me afterwards saying something like ‘ it was a terrible
production but you were the best thing in it and I’d like you
to play Tolen in a production of ‘The Knack’ that I’m doing
for the Drama Department’.
I remember the Drama Department performance space at
that time was an old gym which seemed an odd venue for
performing plays but the department was in its infancy and
was presumably grabbing any space it could find. I
remember there was a full lighting rig and a stage at one end
with a full box set for ‘The Knack’. I remember going to see
at least two other of Mike’s productions in the old gym and
they were uniformly brilliant. I also recall seeing an
adaptation of a Russian play done by an outside company.
I was very quickly smitten by the acting bug and felt very
much at home within the drama department who seemed to
have the best parties on the University campus! I was asked
to see my Head of Faculty (Professor Rees?) shortly after my
appearance in ‘The Knack’ who told me in no uncertain
terms that I was at Hull to study languages and not to ‘act in
plays’! I think I’d got behind with my essays and someone
had reported me to him.
Another event I remember was an appearance at the
University by the actor Micheal Mac Liammoir in his one
man Oscar Wilde show. This was performed not in the old
gym but on the stage used by the University Drama Society
(where we’d done ‘Caligula’) on the top floor of one of the
Faculty buildings. I’d never seen anything like it before and
certainly not a man who obviously enjoyed playing all the
female parts as well as the male. The gossip that came to me
from backstage was that Micheal was wildly camp and kept
calling Mike Walton his little French maid – even though
Mike had a full beard at the time!
There was also at that period of time I seem to recall a
gentleman in the library called Philip Larkin who I was told
was a poet!
These reminiscences come 45 years after the events
described so they may be a bit hazy but I recall my
association with the Drama Department as being a key to my
future development as actor, director and writer for which I
shall always be grateful.
Michael Theodorou