Charles Duff’s The Best of the West End: The Life and Work of Frith Banbury, will be published by Zuleika Books. A wonderful mixture of scholarship and gossip, this biography will fascinate and amuse everyone who loves theatre.
Taking the career of one man, the actor, producer and director Frith Banbury, Charles Duff casts a lens on British theatre in the mid to late twentieth century, revisiting many of the best productions of those years. The resulting book is a vital and necessary re-evaluation of the era.
Charles Duff’s The Best of the West End: The Life and Work of Frith Banbury will be released on 24th February.
Your biography of Frith Banbury is about to be released, what can you tell us about it?
It tells of the life and work of an actor, director and producer, whose career spanned most of the twentieth century and who worked with the greatest actors of his time: including John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Michael and Vanessa Redgrave, Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike and Paul Scofield.
Frith Banbury was perhaps the pre-eminent director in the West End commercial theatre in the fifteen years after the war, and he was a close colleague of the great impresario Binkie Beaumont. He directed some of the original plays of Terence Rattigan, Rodney Ackland and the early plays of Robert Bolt, Tom Stoppard and others. But with the arrival of the Royal Court and the Angry Young Men of the mid 1950s, he suddenly found himself out of fashion and dismissed.
Yet he continued to direct and sometimes produce plays until 2003, when he was 91. I hope to rehabilitate the reputations of some of the authors of the late 40s and early 50s, with whom he was associated and, while writing a serious theatre history, keep it light and fun, like its central figure.
Why did you think now was the right time to revisit the book since its original release?
There has been such an enormous revival of the plays of Terence Rattigan since the book first appeared in 1995 (and he is now rightly considered one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century) as well as interest in Rodney Ackland.
There has been a first rate revival at the National Theatre of ‘Moon on a Rainbow Shawl’ by Errol John, a superb play set in the Caribbean, which Frith first directed in 1958. Young actors and audiences who I talk to, know very little about the period but are fascinated by the writers and actors of the 1940s and 1950s and want to know more.
Why do you think the book will appeal to lovers of theatre?
Frith loved the theatre so completely and absolutely. It was his religion really. Nearly all who worked with him liked and respected him. I can’t imagine that anyone interested in the theatre of the 20th century wouldn’t be fascinated!
What inspired you to write about Frith Banbury in particular?
I first met Frith when I was a stage-struck 16 year old. He was a friend for over 40 years and a great influence on my mind and life. He gave me access to his papers and memories. He willingly helped with the book. The story is his but the analysis and conclusions wholly mine.
What’s been your most surprising revelation while researching the book?
That in looking at the theatre of the past, we shouldn’t make assumptions. Frith Banbury was not some Establishment figure as many thought and think, He was gay, and a Conscientious Objector during the War. His father was an Admiral and he was in life-long revolt against the Establishment .
What would you say to anyone thinking of buying The Best of the West End: The Life and Work of Frith Banbury?
If you like your theatre history to be a mixture of scholarship and gossip, I hope this will be the book for you. My dearest wish is that the reissue of the book will arouse further interest in the plays, players and playwrights of that era, from professionals, amateurs and all theatre lovers.
