Memories of Half Moon Theatre

I was involved with the Half Moon at the time of Guy Sprung, Maurice Colborne and Pam Brighton. I worked with Alan Ford, Alan Devlin, Shane Connaughton, Carol Harrison, Stewart Harwood and Billy Colvill. One of my first memories of the Half Moon was being asked to help carry a long wooden joist from an old derelict building to the Half Moon where it was installed as part of the set of,  I think, Henry IV Part 1  – though I’m not sure since it was over forty years ago. I do remember thinking why the $*^* are we walking down the commercial road carrying a joist? For all I knew we might have just appropriated it in the way that things got appropriated in those days. I think that initial impression summed up for me the radical and transformative approach the Half Moon had at that time – that, that old joist had become part of a stunning design which seemed to open up, what was a tiny abandoned synagogue into an amazing space where the play could be acted out on a number of levels, with the audience, if I remember, overlooking the performance from what, again if I can remember, were a number of catwalks. At the time I came in contact with the theatre I was working at the Theatre Workshop at Stratford so I got what the Half Moon were about and was excited about the chance to be working there. I remember working with Billy and Guy on Spare Us A Copper. I think I played a copper as I looked like a copper. I remember the whole thing had been a collaboration between the theatre and the local law centre. I was associated with the theatre for the best part of the seventies until I joined 7.84 England. Even after that time I remember continuing to see shows at Alie street. I also remember the greasy spoon and the curry house across the road and the Swan pub next door. I also remember drinking Assam tea in large china cups with Maurice while we discussed and worked on Cindy-Ella in his cold water flat which was close by in Half Moon Passage.