Arnold Wesker’s influences and time in prison | Letters
Julia Pascal made reference to Arnold Wesker’s short spell at the London School of Film Technique (Obituary, 14 April). In a letter he sent me in 1968 he announced “the greatest impact came to me from the Italian and Japanese cinema which I discovered in my twenties”. He also recalled the movie of Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, while his list of actors that made an impact included Spencer Tracey, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart (especially) and Paul Muni. “Ah, Paul Muni, our Hungarian, my mother used to say.” Wesker is quoted in the obituary as feeling “frozen in the trilogy”. Yet that trilogy had the opposite effect on audiences, warming their hearts, not least when Beattie in Roots cried out: “Socialism isn’t talking all the time, it’s living, it’s singing, it’s dancing … It’s being concerned about people and the world.”
Ralph Willett
Sherborne, Dorset
I’m sorry to contradict Julia Pascal, but Arnold Wesker’s Shylock was actually seen in Britain, though only briefly. In October 1989, in the early days of my time as director of Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, we hosted a dramatised reading directed by Wesker himself, with Israeli actor Oded Teomi in the lead. It played for only a week, with Arnold hoping to arouse interest in a full production. Sadly, that didn’t materialise. My sole clear memory is a personal one: having to stop my over-insistent octogenarian father from endangering life and limb by lecturing Arnold on his treatment of the Shakespearian character.
Jonathan Lamède
London
Your mention of Arnold Wesker going to prison in 1961 makes light of the full, dramatic story. In fact he had been charged with 30 other members of the anti-nuclear Committee of 100, including Bertrand Russell, for being responsible for organising the planned mass civil disobedience demonstration in Trafalgar Square, on 17 September 1961. As a busy celebrity Wesker, to avoid prison, could have agreed to be bound over to keep the peace, as some “names” did, but to his credit he refused. He stayed the full month in prison despite his workload. He and the poet Christopher Logue entertained the other prisoners with readings from their writings.
Ernest Rodker
London
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