Ben Fletcher-Watson

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Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

How fab! I have some more info I can share for cast and crew.

Hello! All good here - hope you and Mark are doing splendidly!

Hi Simon - this version has done the rounds on social media for years, but I’m not sure of the source. Stoppard’s published version (subtly different to this one) is in “Tom Stoppard in
Conversation”, ed. Paul Delaney, 1994, University of Michigan Press,
p.200-201.

In that case, it might be The Gates of Bannerdale by Geoffrey Trease.

He’s not listed in the programme, but it was seen by *everyone* at the time, and appeared in all the papers and theatre magazines.

It could be “The Art of Coarse Acting” by Michael Green. One Oxford article about the play mentions that the rugby team threatened to do something similar in ‘49!

Here's a deep dive into this particular moment: bsky.app/profile/bfle...

It might have been me on Twitter a few years back. I've recreated the thread here: bsky.app/profile/bfle...

All my kind correspondents have since died - Chitty, Wardle, Becker, Gaskill and now of course, Stoppard - and few are still alive who actually experienced Ariel's magical exit.

But this moment of theatre lives on, moving beyond memory into myth.

Thanks for reading!

The galleon from Neville Coghill's 1949 Tempest, "made of punts strapped together with the superstructure of the galleon built on top of them. It was poled along by among others Tom Chitty the novelist [Sir Thomas Willes Chitty, 3rd Baronet (born 1926), better known as Thomas Hinde]."

Bill helped me find some images from the production, including Caliban's submerged tank shown above, and this picture of the superb galleon in action.

Handdrawn map by Bill Gaskill of Worcester College Lake

He even included a map!

Dear Mr Fletcher-Watson, Memories are fallible at all times but this is my recollection. The duckboards just beneath the surface of the lake on which Ariel ran out across the water were roughly parallel to the audience [“halfway back”, handwritten]. Only the figure was lit from the side so the illusion of running on the water was very convincing. Charles then ran back to the path on the side of the lake and followed the curve of the path which led to the ramp at the back. This was built on scaffolding but how this was masked from the audience I don’t know. Charles ran up the ramp, again lit from the side and as he waved his last farewell the firework exploded and the other lights went out. I add a rough plan as I remember it. The boat on which we sailed away was made of punts strapped together with the superstructure of the galleon built on top of them. It was poled along by among others Tom Chitty the novelist. All the goddesses arrived by punts – one was Mary? Galbraith who wrote about it in the Oxford magazine not all that long ago with photos from the Tatler of 1949. I think I have both these; if you are in London I could show you. Caliban came out of a tank set into the lake. Other people connected with the production including Charles were at a celebration with us to mark the fiftieth anniversary in 1999. I suppose some of those are no longer with us. Nigel Davenport, who played Gonzalo died the other day. Bill Gaskill

But one more letter arrived, from Bill Gaskill, and all fell into place (as you might expect from such a keen-eyed director).

Not much new detail here, and even the myriad mentions of the play in Schlesinger's biography, Hodgson's obituary, Kenneth Tynan's diaries, John Gielgud's letters, Shirley Hughes' memoirs and Coghill's own Festschrift did't clear up the mystery of how it was achieved.

"Neville Coghill (who directed) had caused a long dock to be built about an inch below the surface of the lake and it was on this that Hodgson ran, kicking up little splashes and lit by a large spotlight on the shore behind him."

Grainy image of Caliban in a submerged tank in Worcester College lake, titled One of the "quaint devices" for which the play calls in quantity. Caliban in the watery cradle by the aid of which he appeared to rise from the bottom of the lake.

William Becker, a critic and film producer after Oxford, emailed me next:

"Indeed, I did play Caliban (and made my first appearance by climbing out of the lake from a submerged tank) and I remember very well Ariel's dash across the water..."

So Wardle, like Stoppard, says that Ariel ran across the lake "into the distance", but adds a beautiful detail about Becker's additional appearance as Caliban, waving "farewell to his fellow spirit".

Let's contact Caliban!

"As Charles Hodgson was graceful and fast moving, while Bill was twisted and clumsy, this moment of parting contact, as if between equals, was very touching – as though they were making contact for the first time at the moment of lasting separation."

[…] My own memory, for what it’s worth, is of Ariel running weightlessly across the lake into the distance while Bill Becker, as Caliban, arose from his lair – a tank sunk into the lake at the closest point to the spectators – and waved a farewell to his fellow spirit. As Charles Hodgson was graceful and fast moving, while Bill was twisted and clumsy, this moment of parting contact, as if between equals, was very touching – as though they were making contact for the first time at the moment of lasting separation […]

But he remembered "Ariel running weightlessly across the lake into the distance while Bill Becker, as Caliban, arose from his lair – a tank sunk into the lake at the closest point to the spectators – and waved a farewell to his fellow spirit..."

Irving Wardle via Wikimedia Commons. By John Thaxter - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10340679

Irving Wardle, long-time theatre critic for the Observer, Times and Independent, told me he was cast "in the dance of the sunburnt sicklemen [probably Act 4's masque] but my tutor intervened and put a stop to it as I'd already wasted too much time on univ theatricals."

So what was going on dramaturgically? Did Coghill make some judicious edits to allow Ariel the final line, or did the play carry on after this moment? How did Hodgson cross the lake - in one straight line ending in the firework, or back and forth?

Time to ask a critic, perhaps.

The Tempest - Act 5, scene 1 | Folger Shakespeare Library Putting romance onstage, The Tempest gives us a magician, Prospero, a former duke of Milan who was displaced by his treacherous brother, Antonio. Prospero is exiled on an island, where his only compan...

If you go back to the text, of course, Ariel doesn't have a last line before he exits, nor is this the final scene of the play. From Act 5, scene i: www.folger.edu/explore/shak...

A blurry sepia photograph of Puck walking on water from Titania's bower, from Neville Coghill's 1962 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Coghill himself re-used the effect of walking on water for a 1962 Midsummer Night's Dream, an image of which appears in his Festschrift. So how was it first done?

So it's not quite as Stoppard tells it: Ariel runs out into the lake to wave farewell, then runs back to the same shore in darkness, not straight across the lake - before the firework goes up? The plot thickens...

Dear Mr Fletcher-Watson, I am replying to your letter (6 Jan) to my recently-deceased husband, Thomas Chitty, concerning the Worcester College ‘Tempest’. I also helped with the production, unofficially, and remember clearly that Ariel ran out along a wooden ramp, built out about 40 yds. into the lake. During the ensuing blackout, he ran back to the shore he had just left, unseen! Dear Charles! Yours sincerely Susan Chitty

William, Nash, Hodgson, Schlesinger, Davenport and May had all died. Chitty passed away just before my letter arrived, but Lady Chitty kindly replied.

Dramatis Personae from 'The Tempest'

CAST
David William as Prospero
Ralda Nash as Miranda
Charles Hodgson as Ariel
John Schlesinger as Trinculo
A. William J. Becker as Caliban
Nigel Davenport as Gonzalo
Mary Moore as Ceres

The company also included Bill Gaskill, Jack May, and Sir Thomas Willes Chitty.

So I wrote to Peter Wood. Sadly, a reply from his carer said he was suffering from dementia and could not respond. I decided to track down surviving cast and crew to get a first-hand account.

As you can imagine, this wasn't easy 70+ years later.

Handwritten letter from Tom Stoppard: July 31. Dear Mr Fletcher-Watson, I’m afraid I wasn’t there. Peter Wood (director, now retired) described it to me. His address is: [REDACTED]

Handwritten letter from Tom Stoppard: ...I believe he was present. The way he described it, Ariel ran across the water towards the opposite shore where the dusk swallowed him just as the firework rocket went up. Best wishes, Tom S.

When I wrote to Stoppard, he was very clear that "I’m afraid I wasn’t there. Peter Wood (director, now retired) described it to me... The way he described it, Ariel ran across the water towards the opposite shore where the dusk swallowed him just as the firework rocket went up."

From the same book: "Surprisingly often, over the years, the memory of this production would come up. The director I worked with, the designer... – it was something which had stayed in their memory. This was now 30 years ago, and it’s still a vignette which comes up..."