This is the first in a series of posts about ground breaking artists who have inspired me over the years.
Pic: Maggie Pinhorn in 1984
(Prologue: it was cold on that fateful day. Mum and Dad were driving up Cricklewood Lane where they planned to pick me up from school.
I was 12.
I normally walked home by myself, so it was quite unusual that they would pick me up.
I don’t remember what the occasion was. All I know is that as they looked for a parking place, they spotted someone hurrying furtively down the road to meet them at the gate…
Me.
I had not been in school that day.
I had not been in school that week, that month, that year.
I had not been in school for the past 18 months.
Where had I been?)
________________________________________
In 1974, Central London’s fruit and vegetable market moved out of Covent Garden to a new home in Vauxhall. The Covent Garden Community Association had fought hard to save the old market buildings from demolition. They won their battle, but the market buildings were left empty and deserted. Maggie Pinhorn, then a young filmmaker, had founded Alternative Arts in 1971 in Covent Garden where she lived, and had supported the campaign to save the area. “I looked at the Portico of St Pauls Church and the West Piazza and I thought “this would be a wonderful theatre”.
It was an epiphany. In 1975 Maggie decided to invite different theatre groups to perform outside for free. “I thought it would cheer everyone up, they were all so gloomy about the loss of the market.”
“The then vicar of St Paul’s was very supportive of my plans and the GLC (Greater London Council) agreed to close the street to traffic . We put on the first summer season of street theatre with groups like ‘Beryl and the Perils’. It was very popular and the crowds meant more and more performers turned up and wanted a spot.
“There were hoardings surrounding the old market buildings and the GLC had given us permission to paint them. We invited local children’s play groups to come and paint the boards facing the West Piazza and watch a free show. Always free of course. And because the shows were listed in Time Out, people used to drop by from local offices at lunchtime – with a beer and a sandwich – sit on the pavement and watch a performance. It was structured and supervised by us and it just grew and grew year by year. In 1980 the old market buildings opened as a shopping centre and the GLC decided to support our work on an annual basis because of our success in contributing to the regeneration of the area.
(By the time I was 12 years old, Covent Garden had become a thriving hub of music, comedy, theatre and performance. It was all run by a small team of women, led by Maggie, based in an office on the corner of the Piazza.
Thanks to Maggie’s vision, instead of Maths, Netball and French, I could walk the 8 mile round trip to Covent Garden and watch break-dancers, robots, clowns, a ‘penguin striptease’, two men who acted out the entire plot of ‘Jaws’ …and a classical Chinese Sheng player.
To 12 year old me, the street entertainers were grown up and wildly glamourous. I was too shy to talk to them, but sometimes, in between shows, on cold boring days, they would sit beside me and offer life advice or juggling tips.
No one mentioned my age or asked why I wasn’t in school. One thing which was especially rewarding was being given a hat and asked to collect money from the crowd during a show. I kept a third of what I took, this was my first independent earnings.)
“There were lots of street kids” Maggie says, “and a lot of homeless people. They enjoyed the shows but if they ever started causing trouble or disturbing the performance, I would come up behind them and gently touch their elbows and lead them away. I found lifting their elbows and gently moving them forward really worked because it was so non – confrontational.”
(During the 1970s and 80s Maggie Pinhorn with her all-woman team at Alternative Arts, staged big, free festivals of Clowning, Juggling, an Open Dance Festival, a Performance Poetry Festival and an International Festival of Street Theatre, some of which were televised. These were some of the most important artistic experiences of my teenage years. I was very excited by the creative ways that street performers used the rough outdoor setting, a “lets put on the show right here” ethos which was to be very influential on my outdoor site-specific storytelling.
A couple of years ago I found a clip on YouTube of Maggie campaigning for the rights of street perfomers. The clip also shows a very young busker Suzy- Eddie- Izzard. As I watched Maggie fearlessly demanding justice, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and I decided I needed to find out more about her.
She very kindly agreed to meet me in a cafe in Haggerston so I could ask about her work.)
“Yes, I fought for Street Perfomers rights against the developers,” she said. “Some people just want to grab everything and pile up money. I don’t understand that attitude. I’m a dedicated socialist. I believe our wealth should be shared by everyone.”
A trained artist, Maggie has a gift for tapping into other people’s creativity and energy. Street theatre in Covent Garden was only one of her projects. In the late 80s she also filled Carnaby Street’s empty shops with free art galleries inviting emerging artists to exhibit, and commissioned the huge ‘Spirit of Soho’ mural which has just been restored which depicts Soho’s colourful history. “You need to know how to make an area buzz- and the arts will do that! We were also invited by Westminster City Council to present events in their parks and open spaces including Jazz and Latin American music concerts in Victoria Embankment Gardens.
She invented Alternative Fashion Week in Spitalfields in the 90s, training a diverse crew of would-be models with a six week course at the local art centre. She also created an Alternative Art Market, the ‘Spit Lit Fest’ celebrating women writers, Spitalfields Show and Green Fair, and more recently Black History Month photography exhibitions, Photomonth East London and Women’s History Month East London.
Like me, Maggie started her working life in the UK film industry. “I graduated from art school in 1965 and I hauled my heavy portfolio around Shepperton and Pinewood Studios, looking for a job in an art department.
“The Art Director of ‘You Only Live Twice’, Ken Adam, took me on because I could build models. I was the ‘only girl’ on the team. He asked me to work with the special effects department and work out a way to fold up a helicopter into a suitcase. You didn’t ask questions, you just did it. I remember going to Bond Street and buying a set of three Gucci suitcases and then arranging for a helicopter to come and land on the back lot in Pinewood so we could draw it and figure out how it might work. Later on when working on ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ I helped to design the car.
In the 70s and 80s, she also created the Basement Film Project working with young people in Stepney, creating community festivals across the East End and the Tower Hamlets Arts Project. One of my favourite of her projects is ‘Tunde’s Film’which she produced in 1973, inviting her film crew mates to work for free. The film was co-directed and written by (then) 17 year old playwright Tunde Ikole. It was shot in and around Cable Street E1. It’s still considered a classic.
I asked Maggie how she managed to do so much.
“I was cheeky. I just did things and didn’t worry too much about the rules. For example, in the early 70s, I used to put on big parties- raves really- in one of the large storage basements under King Street in Covent Garden where Alternative Arts was originally based. I shared the space with Marshall Amplifiers so we had a great sound system. The local police came round and said ‘we’re going to raid you.’ I said ‘oh marvellous when will you do that?’ And can you believe it, they told me! ‘Oh, about midnight tonight’.
“And so of course we waited by the doors at midnight ready to photograph their entrance, and as soon as I caught sight of them- this was long before mobile phones- I ran as fast as I could through the whole length of the basement to the DJ, John Peel. I said ‘John, the police are coming!’ So he immediately put on a record called ‘The Laughing Policeman’ so everyone knew the police were there.”
She also found the discipline she had learned on film sets was a vital foundation for future work.
“I am organised. I learned it on film crews. You had to be incredibly well organised. We had ‘Cross Plots’, charts which would help you work out a complicated shooting schedule. They were very useful to me later.”
The film industry also gifted Maggie a fearsome work ethic and a can-do attitude.
“Most of all, it taught me logistics and teamwork. A team can do so much. One person has an idea but then the team bashes it about and argues about it and makes it stronger.”
(Exposure to Maggie Pinhorn’s creative vision at a formative time influenced me in subtle as well as obvious ways. I love drawing on threads of story, place and community and so does she.)
“Wherever you work, it’s important to research, to tap into that sense of place and of history. I created the annual Covent Garden May Fayre & Puppet Festival in 1976 inspired by the plaque on the wall under the portico of St Paul’s Church commemorating the first sighting of Mr Punch in England by Samuel Pepys in his diary on the 9th of May 1662 ‘within the rayles of Covent Garden’. After the first festival the Punch Professors asked me to hold it every year. It has become an iconic event which celebrates the local community and attracts Punch and Judy Professors and puppeteers from all over the country and abroad. That’s the way you build things.”
(Maggie’s work has made a profound difference to many thousands of other people who enjoyed and participated in comedy, theatre, circus, music and fashion. Countless artists got their early opportunities through projects which she initiated.
As for me, although I missed out on 18 months of formal schooling, I had an education at Covent Garden’s street theatre that was one of the most exciting and pivotal times of my life.)
“What a legacy you have!” I exclaimed. “What project are you most proud of?”
“I don’t think of a legacy…” she mused. “I don’t think about what I did really… i was just living my life the way I wanted to.”
https://alternativearts.org.uk
Below: Set designer Ken Adam at work on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Is that Maggie at the table with him?
Below: me, aged 14. I’d obviously learned a lot at Covent Garden!
Below: Ace street performer Paul Keane (aka ‘Captain Keane-0’) explains that when the audience puts money in his hat, they should fold it up first.
Cannot love this blog post enough. I’d love it if all young people could have an education which gifted them this amount of joy and self-understanding.
Thank you for understanding!