His father, unemployed for long periods in the 1930s, would spend time at the Workers’ Arts Club in the town’s Liverpool Street. MacColl’s hands reached for his guitar, and his mind drifted through the theatre doors to the dimly lit streets. An awkward scene change required something to keep the audience’s attention for a couple of minutes. On the opening night, Littlewood hit a problem. ![]() ![]() Their documentary play about the railway town, Landscape with Chimneys, braved the boards in 1950. After the Second World War, he co-founded a socialist drama project, Theatre Workshop, with his first wife, the radical theatre innovator Joan Littlewood. In fact, it was in Salford that MacColl was born plain Jimmy Miller (the name-change came in the mid-Fifties). Conversely, “Dirty Old Town” is smudged in postwar England’s blackened smokestacks and back-to-backs. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, covered by the Chicago soulstress Roberta Flack, is as graceful as any love ballad from the American songbook. Ewan MacColl wrote some matchless international hits (Alamy)įor a man who disliked American-inflected pop, Ewan MacColl wrote some matchless international hits.
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