from Tasneem
As countless other people have already mentioned, Mr Kingsway was a code name assigned to Sir Henry Irving in the Richard II cast list. Kingsway is also scratched on the photo of Ian McKellen who has played Richard III - is there some sort of connection between the two, apart from Shakespeare?
Shakespeare and the notion of a National Theatre almost seem to go hand in hand, even before it came in to being, if one takes in to account London publisher Effingham Wilson's two pamphlets published in 1848 wherein he calls for ' “A House for Shakespeare”, in public ownership, where the works of “the world’s greatest moral teacher” would be constantly performed'.
Kingsway could also perhaps refer to King's Reach where:
'In May 1965 the architect presented his preliminary plans and model, for both a theatre and an opera house. But in March 1966 the Government decided to sanction only the National Theatre for the time being. The following year the opera house scheme was shelved, and Denys Lasdun’s plans for the National Theatre were approved by the National Theatre Board. They had to be adapted to yet another site given by the GLC (successor to the LCC): the 4:7 acre Princes Meadow on King’s Reach. Here work began on 3 November 1969, twenty years after the passing of the National Theatre Act, with shovels symbolically wielded by Jennie Lee; Lord Chandos, Chairman of the National Theatre Board; Lord Cottesloe, Chairman of the South Bank Board and Desmond Plummer, then leader of the GLC'
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=9149
The article from which the above has been extracted, 'The Winding Road to King’s Reach' by Richard Findlater (1977) , is actually well worth reading for another overview (apart from Stage by Stage) of the history of the National Theatre and how it came in to being.
It seems of great consequence that Sir Henry Irving was such a 'consipicuous advocate' behind the National Theatre and with his coded cast list name as Kingsway, perhaps this gets us somewhere. It also seems worthy of note that he was the first actor in British history to receive a knighthood.
Well, these are my ponderings thus far on Kingsway...
Shakespeare and the notion of a National Theatre almost seem to go hand in hand, even before it came in to being, if one takes in to account London publisher Effingham Wilson's two pamphlets published in 1848 wherein he calls for ' “A House for Shakespeare”, in public ownership, where the works of “the world’s greatest moral teacher” would be constantly performed'.
Kingsway could also perhaps refer to King's Reach where:
'In May 1965 the architect presented his preliminary plans and model, for both a theatre and an opera house. But in March 1966 the Government decided to sanction only the National Theatre for the time being. The following year the opera house scheme was shelved, and Denys Lasdun’s plans for the National Theatre were approved by the National Theatre Board. They had to be adapted to yet another site given by the GLC (successor to the LCC): the 4:7 acre Princes Meadow on King’s Reach. Here work began on 3 November 1969, twenty years after the passing of the National Theatre Act, with shovels symbolically wielded by Jennie Lee; Lord Chandos, Chairman of the National Theatre Board; Lord Cottesloe, Chairman of the South Bank Board and Desmond Plummer, then leader of the GLC'
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=9149
The article from which the above has been extracted, 'The Winding Road to King’s Reach' by Richard Findlater (1977) , is actually well worth reading for another overview (apart from Stage by Stage) of the history of the National Theatre and how it came in to being.
It seems of great consequence that Sir Henry Irving was such a 'consipicuous advocate' behind the National Theatre and with his coded cast list name as Kingsway, perhaps this gets us somewhere. It also seems worthy of note that he was the first actor in British history to receive a knighthood.
Well, these are my ponderings thus far on Kingsway...
posted by Rabbit at 3:26 AM
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