[audiobook] Rethinking Celtic Art by Duncan Garrow in Arts-Photography

Description

The Old Vic; one of the worlds great theatres; opened in 1818 with rowdy melodrama and continued with Edmund Kean in Richard III howled down by the audience. One impresario; among the first of thirteen to go bankrupt there; fled to Milan and ran La Scala. In 1848 a chorus girl tried to murder the leading lady. In 1870 the Vic became a music hall; then a temperance tavern and; from 1912; under Lilian Baylis; both an opera house and the home of Shakespeare. By the 1930s great actors were happy to go there for a pittance - John Gielgud; Charles Laughton; Peggy Ashcroft; and Laurence Olivier. The Vic considered itself a national theatre in all but name.After the second world war the Royal Ballet and the English National Opera both sprang from the Vic; and the National Theatre; at last established in 1963 under Olivier; made its first home there. In 1980 the Vic was saved from becoming a bingo hall by a generous Toronto businessman. Since 2004 Kevin Spacey; Hollywood actor and the winner of two Oscars; has led a new company there; and toured the world.