Murray Melvin - at The Theatre Workshop

At The Theatre Workshop

He attended evening classes at the nearby City Literary Institute and studied Drama, Mime and Classical Ballet. Nearly forty years later, having recently directed an opera by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, he remembered the advice of his old headmaster and began piano lessons. During an extended lunch-break from the Ministry, he applied to Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and auditioned on on-stage singing and dancing for Joan Littlewood and Gerry Raffles. On being asked to create a character he knew from life he impersonated a rather rotund director of the Sports Board. Having ascertained that he had to return that afternoon to work for this character Joan Littlewood said to Gerry Raffles: "the poor little bugger, we must get him away from there". And they did.

In October 1957 he became an assistant stage manager, theatre painter and general dogsbody to John Bury, the theatre designer, and he went on stage in his first professional role as the Queen's Messenger in the then in-rehearsal production of Macbeth. From the Scottish Court to a building site his next performance was as a bricky in 'You Won't Always Be On Top', soon followed by a peasant in 'And the Wind Blew', Bellie in Pirandello's 'Man Beast and Virtue', Calisto in De Roja's Celestina; Young Jodi Maynard in Paul Green's Unto Such Glory' (all 1957) and then came the last play of the 1957-58 season which was to be the start of an extraordinary year in the history of Theatre Workshop and Murray's career. He was cast as Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney's play, A Taste of Honey. After the summer break in 1958, he played the title role in the seminal production of Brendan Behan's The Hostage. Both scripts had been transformed in rehearsals by Joan Littlewood's painstaking and inspired methods of getting to the truth of the text and building a lively poetic and dangerous theatrical event. Though both plays were to blow a refreshing wind through the British theatre, neither play transferred to the West End immediately, so Melvin stayed on to play Scrooge's Nephew in Joan Littlewood's adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' (1958).

In February 1959, A Taste of Honey opened at the Wyndham's Theatre and transferred to the Criterion some six months later. It was the hit of the season. Murray Melvin went on to play his role of Geoffrey in the film of A Taste of Honey, directed by Tony Richardson, for which he won the Prix de Cannes as best actor at the Festival in 1962. Dora Bryan replaced Avis Bunnage in the film version. He was nominated for the BAFTA "Most Promising Newcomer" award.

In April 1960, William Soroyan, on a world tour, stopped off in London where he wrote and directed a play for the workshop in which he cast Murray as the leading character called "Sam, the Highest Jumper of Them All". Then the workshop paid their annual visit to the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre for the Paris World Theatre Season with Ben Johnson's 'Everyman in his Humour' in which he played Brainworm. Rehearsals then started for Stephen Lewis's Sparrers Can't Sing in which Murray Melvin played the role of Knocker Jugg. The following year he transferred to the role Georgie Brimsdown for the film adaptation of "Sparrers" retitled "Sparrows Can't Sing". Both the play and the film starred Barbara Windsor and were directed by Joan Littlewood.

After a break of nearly two years the company came together to create the musical, Oh, What a Lovely War!. After its initial run at Stratford it went to the Paris Festival and won it. The company returned to the Wyndham's Theatre where the play won the Evening Standard Best Musical Award. Between the end of its London run and the opening at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York, the company visited the Edinburgh Festival with Shakespeare's Henry IV parts 1 and 2, in which Murray Melvin metamorphosed as Gadshill, Shallow, Vernon and the Earl of March.

The production of Oh, What a Lovely War! in New York in 1964 was his last for Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop Company.

The production attracted the interest of filmmakers, including Ken Russell and Lewis Gilbert. Murray Melvin became a member of what has often been called the Ken Russell Repertory Company, appearing in many of Russell’s most celebrated films, including The Devils and The Boy Friend. Lewis Gilbert cast Murray in H.M.S. Defiant (1962), alongside Dirk Bogarde, and in Alfie, where he played Michael Caine’s work friend, stealing petrol and taking photographs to sell to tourists.