Josephine Tey

by Jennifer Morag Henderson

  The Citizens Theatre Company had been based at the Athenaeum Theatre in Buchanan Street in Glasgow for the first two years of their existence, but found it too cramped.3 In 1945, with the end of the war, they began looking for a new building. They were offered a lease of The Royal Princess’s Theatre in the Gorbals area of Glasgow. This was an old building, with a memorable theatrical past (including a well-known story about a riot caused when an elephant on stage panicked). It was renamed the Citizens Theatre, and still thrives today. It has a distinguished theatrical history, partly because of the radical blueprint that Bridie drew up when he opened: the Citizens Theatre, he hoped, was to be a theatre that would genuinely appeal to every citizen in Glasgow. Tickets were to be accessibly priced, programmes were to be free, and it would showcase the very best in home-grown Scottish playwriting. The venue is still a major producing theatre, staging new work by Scottish playwrights, and still has an extremely competitive pricing structure, including cheap tickets that enable Glasgow students to see the likes of new plays by Liz Lochhead and professional revivals of classical Greek drama from the cheap, uncomfortable seats near the back. The Citizens Theatre has a special atmosphere for its audience and for the actors who play there, and Gordon Daviot helped to build its foundations. However, her dislike of publicity, and her desire to hide behind a pseudonym, means that her total contribution to the Citizens, and to Scottish theatre, has not always been recognized.

  The Citizens Theatre Company officially opened in their new home on 11th September 1945 with a production of Johnson Over Jordan by J. B. Priestley.4 They wanted to follow this successful run with new plays by Scottish writers, to firmly establish their aim to be an innovative Scottish company. By October 1945, Mathew Forsyth of the Citizens Theatre Company was in negotiation with Dramatic Agent Mrs T. C. (Evelyn) Dagnall (in association with A. M. Heath & co), London, to put on a new play by Gordon Daviot. The play was called The Little Dry Thorn, and it was an expanded version of the one-act religious play Sara that was soon to be published in Daviot’s collection Leith Sands, and which had just been broadcast on BBC radio in June of 1945.

  The Citizens Theatre Company agreed with the agent that they would be the first to perform The Little Dry Thorn. It would not be performed anywhere else in Scotland before their production, and it would not be performed by anyone else in Scotland for a year after the Citizens Theatre production (though an exception was carefully made for a possible one-off production in Leeds). Essentially, the Citizens wanted to make sure that they were the first and only theatre company to have Daviot’s new play. They also agreed to pay Gordon Daviot 5 per cent royalties. After the initial negotiations with the agent were completed, and Gordon Daviot had signed the contract, the Citizens Theatre Company began to write directly to the playwright herself. From this moment on, the correspondence becomes more and more chatty and familiar. Gordon Daviot liked her agent to do the initial legal negotiations over money and rights for her, but once she herself was involved, the letters become far more informal. The administrator at the Citizens Theatre also becomes more informal in his letters to her agent, as they start to build up a working relationship. Several letters were necessary to sort out all the details, and the correspondence filed by the Citizens Theatre for The Little Dry Thorn continues long after the contract is signed, into June 1946. Gordon Daviot spent some time on correspondence like this, not only for this play, but also for all her previously produced work. As her work was very successful, the administrative tasks associated with her writing needed time and effort as well as the new writing she was doing. For example, at this time she was also in negotiations with the BBC, who produced an adaption by Hugh Stewart of Richard of Bordeaux for broadcast on their ‘Saturday Night Theatre’ radio programme on 26th July 1946, as well as, that same year, the first broadcast of Gordon Daviot’s one-act play Remember Caesar.5 Gordon has been criticized for not taking part in the ‘tea party’ circuit in Inverness, but it’s doubtful if her neighbours understood how much time she needed for her work. She was not a loner who did not want to join in, she was a busy working woman. Gordon was not a hermit; she was in constant contact by letter with her professional colleagues, and her friends. The Citizens Theatre Company – or at least representatives of it – were also among the small number of her professional colleagues who made the effort to travel to Inverness to visit her: a letter from 1946 states ‘looking forward to seeing you in Inverness’, and it seems Gordon Daviot received visits both before the production started in Glasgow, and later when it toured to Inverness.

  The Citizens Theatre Company archive contains copies of most of the correspondence between Daviot, her agent and the Company, but, frustratingly, letters are not always signed, as only the carbon copy was kept on file. This sometimes makes it hard to know who was writing, but Gordon Daviot was mainly in touch with Mathew Forsyth, and with James Bridie himself. Mathew Forsyth, the Citizens’ producer, had been the stage director for Richard of Bordeaux at its first performances in 1932 and Daviot specifically said that she gave her play to the ‘Citz’, ‘because of Mathew Forsyth [...] he was very sweet and kind to me when I was new in the theatre’.6 It was Mathew Forsyth who had first written to ask if she had a play, and she had obliged with The Little Dry Thorn. Gordon Daviot was well known for her ability to make friends, and keep up friendships with, the backstage staff at her productions, the cushion she had received from the backstage crew at Richard of Bordeaux being the best illustration of this.

  These friendships have not seemed as glamorous to later admirers of Daviot as her friendships with leading actors, but they were, perhaps, ultimately more useful to her. Richard of Bordeaux was well known for being a production with a number of ‘new’ people working on it – it was the Motley’s first production, Daviot’s first play, and so on – and many of these backstage people, not just the actors, had gone on to have successful careers in theatre. Another key figure working backstage at the Citz was set designer Molly MacEwen, the elder daughter of Alexander MacEwen, ex-provost of Inverness, and sister of Margaret, who had by now ended her affair with Neil Gunn. Gordon Daviot became very friendly with Molly, who was about twelve years her junior.7 Neil Gunn, incidentally, was well aware of Daviot’s shows at the Citz, and was in correspondence with James Bridie himself throughout the 1945 negotiations for the post-war season, though mainly about their nights out – meals with the literati (all male). Another connection between the two men was Bridie’s cousin, the Reverend Ivan Mavor, who was based in Inverness for a time and whom Gunn had met through Alexander MacEwen.8

  Inverness was closely linked in to the Scottish literary world – Scotland is a small place and connections are easy enough to make – but there were barriers set in Gordon’s way. Bridie was very much a man’s man, and, although he was happy to take Gordon Daviot’s plays, he would never have socialized with her in the way that he socialized with Neil Gunn. When Gordon Daviot met Bridie, it would have been with his wife Rona, in a more family setting – though, since Rona had connections to the Black Isle and the Inverness area, this was congenial for Beth, and Rona always remembered her fondly. The rub was that when Bridie and Gunn met socially, along with other people like Hugh MacDiarmid and the painter J. D. Fergusson, their discussions about things like the formation of a Scottish Academy rather set the scene for Scottish literary culture – and thus excluded Gordon Daviot, not just from attending and influencing these meetings, but from later analysis.9 Gordon Daviot and James Bridie got on very well, but when scholars later looked at the Scottish literary scene, Bridie’s polite negotiations by letter with Gordon Daviot have not been seen as being as significant as nights where Bridie, Gunn and MacDiarmid met in the pub.10

  But it was not just Gordon Daviot’s contacts that helped her to get plays produced. She was well aware of how things worked. The quality of her writing was always the key aspect that attracted people to her work, and she wanted to make sure that this always shone through, and was never overshadowed by an
y publicity or associations with her name, sex or previous work. In 1945, Gordon Daviot decided to try out a third pseudonym. This third name was never revealed during her lifetime, and, even now, over sixty years after her death, it is barely known. In 1945, at the same time as she was carrying out negotiations with the Citizens Theatre Company for Gordon Daviot’s The Little Dry Thorn, Beth MacKintosh was also negotiating with the Citizens Theatre for Cornelia, by F. Craigie Howe.11 Actively on the lookout for new scripts, when the Citizens Theatre Company received the comedy Cornelia by F. Craigie Howe, they were very keen to put it on. Cornelia was to be one of the successes of their new programme at their new theatre, and the ‘mystery’ of the author was news in all the Glaswegian and national Scottish papers. Although journalists at the time tried their hardest, in this instance Beth MacKintosh managed to fool everyone. The only person who knew the identity of ‘F. Craigie Howe’ was James Bridie, and he took the secret to the grave with him. The pen name was not revealed until after both Bridie and Daviot had died.

  Beth MacKintosh had recognized a change in her writing during the Second World War. I have highlighted the lightening of her mood, which was evident in the short one-act plays which were broadcast on the BBC, and later collected in Leith Sands. The Three Mrs Madderleys was startlingly different in tone to Sara – and Cornelia was startlingly different in tone to The Little Dry Thorn. Beth decided that she did not want the name ‘Gordon Daviot’ to be identified with a light Coward-esque romantic comedy, and she chose her new pen-name for this reason.12 Craigie Howe is a place name on the Black Isle, near Inverness. Beth was a dedicated walker, and had thoroughly explored the countryside where she lived, so it seems certain that this is where she got the name. She was always fond of names with secret meanings. To get to Craigie Howe from her home in Crown, she could walk up to the water in Merkinch, and then take the ferry over to the Black Isle. Walking round Ord Hill, she would eventually come to the steep cliffs which are known as Craigie Howe. It is a long walk, but nothing for a former Anstey student. Shallow caves at the bottom of the cliffs look out over stony beaches to the water of Munlochy Bay. At the entrance to the cave at the bottom of the hill known as Craigie Howe there was once a natural spring, though nowadays it is just a muddy pool. It’s easy to imagine Elizabeth, contented in this isolated place, exhilarated from the walk to get there, and making plans for her future. There’s no indication of what the ‘F’ in ‘F. Craigie Howe’ might have stood for – ‘Female’?

  The Citizens Theatre Company archive is now housed at the Scottish Theatre Archive in the University of Glasgow. A member of the library staff found the file on Cornelia for me easily enough, but then had a whispered consultation with one of her colleagues. According to their records, the file was ‘restricted’ – but no one could remember why. The initial negotiations for Cornelia were carried out between the Citizens Theatre Company and a theatrical agent, much like the negotiations for The Little Dry Thorn, but then the secret of F. Craigie Howe’s identity had been revealed, in the strictest of confidence, to James Bridie only. Bridie had been sworn to such strict secrecy that the file was still marked ‘restricted’ after all these years.

  Beth MacKintosh had signed the contract for Cornelia in October 1945, two months before the contract for The Little Dry Thorn was signed. The terms were similar, with productions being reserved for the Citizens Theatre Company first, and Beth to receive 5 per cent of the profits. The contract letter was sent to ‘Mr. F. Craigie Howe esq., c/o Crown Cottage, Inverness’. After the formalities were over, the Citizens Theatre Company (probably in the person of James Bridie, as the style is his confrontational, over-honest best) wrote to Beth,

  Dear Gordon Daviot,

  I read with great delight your play of Abraham, and now am going to have the temerity to say, as a pious writing it is delightful, but as a play Craigie Howe’s Cornelia is much better. Abraham on his own is an amusing and extremely interesting study, but has absolutely no dramatic shape, and while I am looking forward to doing “Cornelia” by F. Craigie Howe, I am still hoping for a ‘good play!!’ from yourself.

  Thank you very much for letting me read ‘The Little Dry Thorn’.

  As with her experience on Richard of Bordeaux, Beth was happy to let her writing do the talking. She didn’t rely on her ‘name’ or position as an established writer to get her work produced, but instead wanted it to be accepted as a quality piece of work that could stand on its own. Most people would agree with James Bridie that Cornelia is more enjoyable than The Little Dry Thorn, but with some qualifications.

  Cornelia Taft from Forks of Sagataw in Labrador in Canada is one of Gordon Daviot’s ingénue heroines, a little like Erica Burgoyne in A Shilling for Candles. This kind of heroine can be rather wearing in her relentless unconventionality and energy, but Cornelia does have her appealing moments, and the unrealistic, Cinderella-in-reverse quality of the play makes it rather good fun. Cornelia has more ‘dramatic shape’ than The Little Dry Thorn in that it has a clear beginning, middle and end, and the conclusion is nicely set up, with pointers leading to it rather in the way a mystery novel needs its clues to get to a satisfactory conclusion. Cornelia is well constructed. Cornelia herself dramatically arrives in a taxi in England, where she is met with incredulity and a little indulgence by the butler Parkin (a very Bunter-esque figure) and her new guardian Lucas:

  PARKIN I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t seem to have enough to take care of the taxi.

  CORNELIA Take care of it? Who wants to take care of it?

  LUCAS All right, Parkin. (Feeling in his pocket) How much is it?

  PARKIN Eleven pounds, seventeen shillings, and ninepence, sir.

  LUCAS What!

  CORNELIA (equably)I was afraid it might be quite a bit.

  LUCAS Cornelia, How far have you come by cab?

  CORNELIA From the docks.

  LUCAS You mean you came all the way from Southhampton by taxi-cab?

  CORNELIA No; from Liverpool.

  LUCAS But why didn’t you take the train?

  CORNELIA I didn’t like the look of them.13

  She has arrived at Liverpool rather than Southampton because she took a working boat from Canada, rather than the luxury passenger ship. This sets the scene for Cornelia’s unconventional attitude to class, which is easy to indulge with the amount of money her guardian lavishes on her. She gets herself a new fur coat and, her heart’s desire, a pair of utterly impractical high heeled shoes and proceeds to learn how to fish, beat everyone at golf and show how good she is at shooting, while making remarks about how things are done in the little town she comes from, interspersed with the homely wisdom of ‘Barney from the store’ and a cutting analysis of socialist politics. So long as it’s not seen as being in any way realistic, it is a bouncy, readable play that rattles along to its satisfying conclusion.

  The Little Dry Thorn is quite different. It tells the Old Testament story of Sara and Abraham, Abraham’s conversations with God and his journeys, and Sara’s struggles with fertility and her arrangement with her handmaiden Hagar to bear Abraham’s first child. It breathes life into names that have become symbols, endowing the Biblical characters with personality, charm and humour, and shows real insight into character. Sara has to deal with practicalities as well as religious concepts, as we watch her and Hagar pack away her clothes before they follow Abraham. Clothes can be ‘a great comfort’ says Sara. ‘It is very odd having to say goodbye to one’s clothes [...]. One grieves for them.’ The genuine sadness and confusion Sara feels at leaving her home is expressed through descriptions – hers and others – of her clothes, and the occasions when she wore them. In this, and other flashes, we can see not only her characters but also Gordon Daviot’s personality.

  However, as James Bridie summed it up privately to Gordon Daviot, although delightful, it has very little shape. To a serious scholar of the Bible, who takes it as read that every Biblical story is of inherent interest, it is a play which can stimulate debate an
d provide food for thought. For the audience who is less familiar with the story, it has an inherent shapelessness: there is little dramatic tension. The play is not expressly religious, and its point is not to convince the audience of the existence of God, it is an exploration of people’s lives, but by making it less overtly religious the audience are never entirely clear quite why these people’s lives should be of interest. Publicly, James Bridie told the press that The Little Dry Thorn had ‘gentle clarity’, while on the accompanying programme handed out to all the audience members at the Citz, Gordon Daviot said it was ‘a simple folk tale from the Middle East’.

  Gordon Daviot helped the Citizens Theatre considerably with publicizing The Little Dry Thorn. Daviot has often been described as being wary of the press, and she certainly avoided them after Richard of Bordeaux, but her attitude had changed after the Second World War. The renewed optimism with which she was attacking her writing career seems to have spilled over into a willingness to speak about herself, her opinions and her writing. From this point on, if she was asked, she was quite happy to volunteer information. Several articles, over several days, in the Glasgow Evening News, the Evening Citizen and the Daily Record quoted Daviot directly, as she publicly said that she was an ‘enthusiastic supporter’ of the Citizens Theatre.14 The Evening Citizen reported that she had been writing plays from her schooldays, while the Evening News recalled the success of Richard of Bordeaux and drew its readers’ attention to the fact that Mathew Forsyth of the Citz had worked on that production. The Observer noted another link to Daviot’s home town of Inverness, pointing out that the new scenic designer at the Citz was Molly MacEwen, daughter of a former provost of Inverness. Both the Evening News and the Daily Record reported Daviot’s opinions on modern theatre-going, characteristically expressed in her forthright manner, including her dislike of smoking in the auditorium and, particularly, intervals in plays. Daviot thought the social aspect of play going should be satisfied before and after a performance, not during: ‘How can a man who has been out to the bar, bought a packet of cigarettes, greeted five separate acquaintances, stood a friend a drink, damned the government, arranged a golf four for Saturday, and cast an eye over the local houris, be expected to care two hoots what happens to imaginary characters in Act II of any play?’ The Daily Record, interested in the Citz’ intention of focusing on Scottish plays by Scots, expressed an interest in this eminent Scottish playwright’s opinion of the current vogue for writing in Scots, but Daviot said bluntly, ‘there’s no special virtue in the Doric’. She was never keen on any expression of Scottish nationalism, and, as a native of Inverness, would never have spoken any form of Scots, so it was particularly irrelevant to her.15