As the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow celebrates its seventieth year of theatrical excess with a welter of activity that includes several high-profile shows and a BBC TV documentary, Blood and Glitter, set to be screened this week, a much less lauded but equally key influence on the Citz style and way of doing things is also being celebrated. It was fifty years ago that that The Close, a 150-seat studio space in a former gambling club adjoining the Citz, opened its doors to a new world of experimental theatre. In the club-based theatre's short but colourful life between 1965 and 1973, The Close played host to some of the more outré contributions to the European art house canon in a uniquely underground environment which managed to circumnavigate the censorship imposed on live performance by the Lord Chamberlain up until 1968 when his role was abolished. In its eight year existence, The Close may have began with productions of rarely seen curtain-raisers by Shaw, but there was also a c
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.