Court on camera

Ben Walters considers whether the Royal Court altered British film as much as British theatre.

Dec  1 2006

The links between stage and screen have been stronger in the UK than in many countries, and nowhere more so than at the Royal Court. As part of its fiftieth anniversary programme, this Sunday sees 'a celebration of the celluloid history of the Royal Court', with film screenings in the main auditorium and a panel discussion featuring alumni Antonia Bird, Stephen Daldry, Christopher Hampton and Joe Penhall. It also marks the Royal Court's longstanding association with Samuel Beckett, including screenings of 'Film' (1965), 'Not I' (1977) and a working cut of Harold Pinter's phenomenal recent performance in 'Krapp's Last Tape', which the Court's present artistic director, Ian Rickson, is currently editing for transmission on BBC Four.

The play that in 1956 made the Court's name as the home of socially engaged British theatre – John Osborne's 'Look Back in Anger' – was also the first production of Woodfall Films in 1958. Founded by Osborne, Royal Court associate director Tony Richardson and producer Harry Saltzman (who would co-produce the Bond films), Woodfall's output became synonymous with the British New Wave: it adapted Osborne's Royal Court production 'The Entertainer' (Richardson, 1960) – which earned Laurence Olivier an Oscar nomination and marked the screen debuts of Alan Bates and Albert Finney – and made 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' (Karel Reisz, 1960), 'A Taste of Honey' (Richardson, 1961), 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' (Richardson, 1962) and 'Tom Jones' (Richardson, 1963), scripted by Osborne and created with numerous Court personnel. ('Look Back in Anger' and 'Tom Jones' screen on Sunday.) Beyond Woodfall, the period also saw the production of 'This Sporting Life', directed by long-time Royal Court director Lindsay Anderson, and screen versions of Court productions like 'The Kitchen', 'The Long and the Short and the Tall' and 'A Kind of Loving'.

'When I arrived at the Court in 1966,' recalls playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton, 'the British film industry had been as affected by the Royal Court as the theatre. It is arguable that that movement pretty much transformed the face of English cinema in the same way that theatre had been changed by Osborne and the others.' Hampton – whose films include 'Dangerous Liaisons' (1988, directed by fellow Court alumnus Stephen Frears), 'Total Eclipse' (based on a Court play) and the forthcoming adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' – had always hoped to write for the screen. 'I think if I'd been French I would have bypassed the theatre altogether and gone straight to the movies.' He still found the transition challenging, however. 'Rather unexpectedly, it was more difficult to write films than it was to write plays. I think the freedom of film is sort of a false friend – if you just give in to the possibilities of film, you end up with something shapeless and incoherent.'

Hanif Kureishi began working at the Court aged 18 in 1972 and saw his first play staged there four years later. The respectful collaboration between writer and director that he found there set expectations he took to film and TV, where his work has been directed by Frears ('My Beautiful Laundrette', 'Sammy and Rosie Get Laid') and another Court veteran, Roger Michell ('The Buddha of Suburbia', 'The Mother', the forthcoming 'Venus'). 'These were really equal relationships,' he has recalled of the Court's working practice. 'The director didn't swamp the writer. When I worked for the first time in movies with Stephen Frears, this really was a collaboration between the two of us in the tradition of the Court. And that's remained with me, and I think with Stephen and Roger too.'

Film adaptations of other Court plays followed: a brace of Joe Ortons, 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', Edward Bond's 'Lear', Terry Johnson's 'Insignificance' (Nicolas Roeg, 1985) and Alan Clarke's films of 'Rita, Sue and Bob Too' (1986) and Jim Cartwright's 'Road' (1987).

It was during the early '80s that director Antonia Bird came to the Court, working with Richard Eyre, David Hare and David Edgar as well as Kureishi, Michell and Danny Boyle. 'None of us were really film-oriented when we were at the Court because we were all learning our craft,' she says. Bird suggests that one of the aspects tying the Court to British cinema is an engagement with contemporary issues – 'that idea of working with new writers on current and immediate material reflective of the society we're living in.' Even so, 'working at the Royal Court you were kind of preaching to the converted, so getting it outside the theatre was very important. From my point of view as a director, film represented freedom and it genuinely delivered.'

Unsurprisingly, 'I bring with me the massive respect for the script from the Court.' Her work includes Jimmy McGovern's 'Priest' (1994) and the recent 'Cracker' comeback, as well as 'Ravenous' (1999), Ronan Bennett's 'The Hamburg Cell' (2004) and the forthcoming Irvine Welsh-scripted 'The Meat Trade'.

The mid-'90s saw another slew of adaptations of plays performed at the Court, including 'Tom & Viv', 'Death and the Maiden' and 'Oleanna', as well as Court premieres 'My Night with Reg' (directed by Michell) and 'East Is East'. Artistic director Stephen Daldry – later to direct 'Billy Elliott' and 'The Hours' – oversaw the Court's return to 'in-yer-face' theatre by the likes of Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill and Joe Penhall, whose 'Some Voices' and 'Blue/Orange' were both filmed. Penhall has also adapted 'Enduring Love' and 'The Long Firm' for the screen and directed short films of his own.

Unlike Kureishi or Bird, Penhall's career remains rooted in theatre; his experience of film has been less happy, with his adaptation of 'The Last King of Scotland' rejected after five years' devoted work. A lesson in the fickleness of the industry? 'It wasn't so much a lesson as the hammering of a lifetime, and it's made me pretty gun-shy about who I can get involved with in the film business. It's great when they take an interest, but it's like being breezed over by some hoary old drunk with bags of cash, and completely unreliable as a way of achieving artistic satisfaction.'

Penhall values the Court as an environment whose encouragement of experimentation contrasts to the commercial imperatives of the film industry. 'The Royal Court's a great factory for talent and they're probably unique in the world. People tend to be very coy about teaching writers to write, but there you get to interface with extraordinary directors and actors, and you get wonderful script notes. That kind of nurturing, mentoring process doesn't happen in the film industry.'

'Royal Court on Film' is at the Royal Court on Sun Dec 3 from 2-10pm.

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