Research links

There is little of the history of Oval House from the Peter Oliver years on the internet.

Here are some links which may help.

External links

• Ref to the first UK Black panther movement meeting being at OH

• Link showing Howard Brenton's Christie In Love was first produced at OH in 1969

• David Hare biog which confirms that David Hare directed Christie In Love at Oval House in 1968 - for Portable theatre

• Howard Brenton’s Christie In Love at Oval House: Portable Theatre, 1969

• EDWARD BOND'S BLACK MASS AT OH, as part of the Shapeville sequence. 1970 - with Tim Pigott-Smith

• Michael kustow’s account of a pip Simmons production at OH as part of his article about the revival of an Die Musik

• Was this The George Jackson Black and White Moinstrel Show listed as playing at OH in 1973?

• This link also shows productions at OH in 1973 by Feast of fools and Foco Novo

Circus development at OH

1973 - London Fringe theatre begins to explore circus skills at venues like the Oval House / Le Grand Magic Circus appear at The Roundhouse

http://www.circusarts.org.uk/i-want-to/research/history-links.php

(I have an inkling that a lot of people in companies like Cunning Stunts were at OH in the 70s)

Extracts

Artsadmin began in 1979, set up by Judith Knight and Seonaid Stewart who had worked together at the Oval House in the late seventies. Oval House had been at the centre of experimental theatre in London throughout the sixties and seventies frequently presenting companies such as The People Show, Pip Simmons Theatre Group, Hesitate and Demonstrate, Forkbeard Fantasy and IOU, and many other companies from Britain and abroad.

From ArtsAdmins web site

Quotes

“When I went to his Black And White Minstrel Show, a grotesque assault on racism, at Oval House in Kennington, I found myself hand-cuffed at the interval to a blacked-up actor who followed me to the bar like a bowing and scraping human rebuke, answering "Yes, Massah" to everything I said.”

Pip Simmons at OH

“From the 1970s, I enjoyed several years in England, highlights including 1973/4 with Incubus, a company co-founded by Paddy Fletcher, touring England playing a variety of monks, knights, witches and eccentrics in Paddy's very funny, "mediaeval" plays. That included stints at the Oval House and Roundhouse in London.” From an autobiography of actor Frank benn, famous as a Neighbours actor, apparently, (??) here http://perfectblend.net/features/interview-bren.htm I think that Chris Bowler and Pierce Brosnan featured naked in one of these Incubus productions…Pierce a a mad monk, CB as a wench. The mind boggles."

Incubus