ARTIFICIAL HELLS

incidental people
Community Cameos, 1970s, William Shakespeare performed by Phil Ryder
supported new forms of identitarian theatre, such as the Gay Sweatshop and
Women’s Theatre, and held one of the UK’s first seasons of Black Theatre.
Inter- Action also set up the city farm in Kentish Town, the Weekend Arts
College (a free education centre for children, mostly from ethnic minorities),
and pioneered ‘social enterprise’ – getting management consultancies to fund
self-organised, not-for-profit community groups. 76 Berman refers to himself
as the organisation’s ‘artistic director’, with total control over the plays
produced; this ensured ongoing Arts Council support, since his policy was
always to have one well- known actor or director involved (from the playwright
Tom Stoppard to actors such as Prunella Scales and Corin Redgrave).
Berman asserts that he was committed to professional standards; it was
important to ensure quality, since community theatre was part of the same
market of actors and directors.
Inter- Action’s multiple and energetic wings aimed to be both educational
and artistic, as can be seen in the long- term performance project
Community Cameos. Three actors were each trained to live and speak as one
of three historical figures – William Shakespeare, Captain Cook and
Edward Lear – before being disseminated around London (and eventually
around the UK and as far as Los Angeles) as a walking repository of information
about each historic character. 77 Each actor, having intensively
researched his role, and wearing period costume, would behave as a time
traveller not only in public situations (schools, community centres, etc.),
but also when taking the bus or taxi to and from jobs, or when checking into
hotels. John Perry (who played Lear) also operated from a Victorian
parlour in the Cedric Price building, which children could visit, travelling
back in time to the nineteenth century as Lear travelled forwards to meet
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