Joan Maud Littlewood (1914–2002) was an English theatre director who is often
referred to as the “Mother of Modern Theatre.” Littlewood is best-known for her
anti-establishment plays such as Oh, What a Lovely War! (1963) and for her groundbreaking
collaborative approach to theatre bringing politics, a European sensibility
and working class characters to the English stage.
She grew up in south London and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art at 16, working as a cleaner to pay her way. She left in 1934, moving
to Manchester and joining the agit-prop company Theatre of Action. She met and
married folk-singer Jimmie Miller (later known as Ewan MacColl) and they set up
Theatre Union together in 1936. Due to their production of Last Edition being regarded
as “thinly-veiled communist propaganda” by a Lancashire police chief, they were put
under surveillance for ten years by MI5 and Littlewood was refused entry to a radio
studio by the BBC.
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Joan Maud Littlewood (1914–2002) was an English theatre director who is often
referred to as the “Mother of Modern Theatre.” Littlewood is best-known for her
anti-establishment plays such as Oh, What a Lovely War! (1963) and for her groundbreaking
collaborative approach to theatre bringing politics, a European sensibility
and working class characters to the English stage.
She grew up in south London and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art at 16, working as a cleaner to pay her way. She left in 1934, moving
to Manchester and joining the agit-prop company Theatre of Action. She met and
married folk-singer Jimmie Miller (later known as Ewan MacColl) and they set up
Theatre Union together in 1936. Due to their production of Last Edition being regarded
as “thinly-veiled communist propaganda” by a Lancashire police chief, they were put
under surveillance for ten years by MI5 and Littlewood was refused entry to a radio
studio by the BBC.
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