Cambridge Theatre Company
The Cambridge Arts Theatre was home to the Cambridge Theatre Company (established in 1969), which became one of the most respected and influential touring companies in the UK. Formed as a sister company to Toby Robertson's Prospect Theatre Company and Ian McKellen's Actors' Company (presented as part of CTC), the Cambridge Theatre Company enjoyed enormous loyalty in its home town, and many excellent emerging actors were featured in its wide repertoire.
Under Jonathan Lynn (1976–1981) many of the company's productions transferred to the West End. Lynn, a 1963 Cambridge graduate along with John Cleese and others in the Footlights, used his many contacts to build up a successful repertoire of quality drama. He commissioned plays from Frederic Raphael (After the Greek) and Royce Ryton (The Unvarnished Truth with Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden), and his production of Songbook, a spoof musical by Julian More and Monty Norman, transferred to London in 1978.
Like the Prospect Theatre Company and the Actors' Company, CTC initially operated a repertory system of a company of around 14 actors. For example, the 1974 six-play season featured Zoë Wanamaker, Oliver Ford Davies, Roger Rees and Ian Charleson. Sheila Hancock was a regular under Lynn, becoming Associate Director. Maureen Lipman starred in her husband Jack Rosenthal's play Smash! based on the ill-fated West End musical Bar Mitzvah Boy, itself based on the smash hit 1976 television play of the same name in which Lynn and Lipmann had featured.
During the 1970s and early 1980s a primary function of the Cambridge Theatre Company, along with the Oxford Playhouse Company, was to provide middle-scale theatres such as in Harlow, Swindon, Darlington, Mold, Southampton, Croydon, Peterborough, Cardiff, and Stirling with good quality touring drama. The company's Arts Council of Great Britain grant was dependent on this.
The directors of the company were Richard Cottrell (1969–1975), Robert Lang (1975–1976), Jonathan Lynn (1976–1981), Bill Pryde (1981–1988), Robin Midgley (1988–1991), and Mike Alfreds (1991–1999). The company's headquarters were moved to London in the mid-1990s, and its name was changed to "Method and Madness". In 1999 the company dissolved in the face of declining interest in quality drama in the provinces.
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