Roy Nevitt

Roy was born in 1939 in Brighton. His first job was teaching English in Marlow. He produced school plays and realised that kids learned more quickly through drama than in the classroom. He became Head of Drama in Market Drayton. Before that, he was sent on a drama course at Keele University. He met Peter Slade, the guru of Drama in Education and Peter Cheeseman, who was doing musical documentary plays in theatre-in-the-round in Stoke-on-Trent.

The Market Drayton Comprehensive School combined a Grammar and a Secondary Modern School. He brought the staff together in a production of Hamlet. He was noticed by HMI and headhunted to train teachers at North Bucks College. There he met Gordon Vallins who created the Theatre Studies A Level curriculum and later founded TIE in the UK. They did a documentary play about the US elections, but were criticised for using secondary sources. A few weeks later he went to the US and experienced first-hand conscientious objectors and the Vietnam War protests.

He returned to the US on a permanent basis. He and his wife were going to lead students across the States, learning by living with America’s hidden communities. So many kids signed up that there were six groups. Art and poetry was published and 100 kids did it the following year and 200 in subsequent years. Children of eminent people took part.

In 1972, Roy and his wife returned to Stony Stratford to start a family. He heard about Stantonbury Campus and Geoff Cooksey, its founding director. He introduced himself as ‘the best drama teacher you could ever find anywhere’ and was appointed Director of Drama & Theatre. He taught during the day and created a community theatre company and a professional company as well as taking responsibility for the Great Linford Festivals. He made the theatre available to local people  and brought in professional touring companies like ‘Belt & Braces’, 7:84’ and ‘Shared Experience’.

He taught Theatre Studies A Level and a Performing Arts programme. He started with six or seven pupils and it grew to 20-odd. They spent a week in Sapperton, Gloucestershire making  a play which they brought the play back to Stantonbury with professional standards.

He read a book about the ‘The Burston School Strike’ and contacted the author, Bert Edwards, about turning it into a play. The company went to Burston and performed a first draft of the play on location. The ex-strikers were invited to the first performance at Stantonbury and Violet Potter, who had written ‘We are going on strike tomorrow’ on the blackboard and initiated the strike, was invited on stage.

The MK Development Corporation gave him a fee to cover a local subject. He wrote ‘All Change” about the coming of the railways to Wolverton, which paralleled what was happening to Milton Keynes. In a similar process to what happened at Market Drayton Comprehensive, newcomers and locals came together in a joint effort. It was very popular and many members of the Labour government came to see it.

The Development Corporation asked him to advise about a city centre theatre. They commissioned a study by Gordon Vallins that recommended postponing the theatre until an audience had been built.

The Arts Council got him to chair a National Conference on Documentary Theatre. He wanted to demonstrate making theatre from primary sources. He already knew Roger Kitchen and asked him for material. Roger had the letters of Albert French. At the end of the Conference, Roy had the draft of ‘Albert’.

Roger also had interviews with Hawtin Mundy. They gave rise to ‘Days of Pride’ about Wolverton and the Front in the First World War. It was received locally with colossal enthusiasm.

Marion Hill and Brad Bradstock were involved in ‘All Change’ and ‘Days of Pride’ was entirely Living Archive Band.

‘Days of Pride’ was followed by ‘Jovial Priest’ about Joey Guest and his conflict with his congregation. It was flawed because the Church wouldn’t release the documentary evidence. Music for that was done by Rod Hall with a 24-piece orchestra.

The next play was ‘Sheltered Lives’ about the Second World War. The first half climaxed with Spitfires and a Lancaster bomber, but the second half was weaker.

The ecumenical group of Milton Keynes churches asked him to do a play. He agreed to do the National Theatre’s ‘The Mysteries’ in three parts. That was followed by ‘Lark Rise’ and ‘Candleford’, also from the National Theatre. Next came the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ and Roy persuaded the adapter, David Edgar, to alter it from two parts to three.

Roy started Living Archive with his wife, Maggie, and Roger in 1984. ‘Living’ showed it was alive, ‘Archive’ that it dealt with people’s histories and ‘Project’ that it needed funds.

The Gulbenkian Foundation gave many hundred-thousands of pounds and sometimes initiated projects: Dig Where You Stand, for example. The Arts Council funded many new projects like Theatre of Fact. Then the Arts Council gave £25,000 grants three times a year to create new projects. But when the Arts Council insisted on some local funding, Buckinghamshire refused.

In 1998-9 he got serious cancer, but recovered. He left Stantonbury to be an Arts Mark-Validator and Arts Award-Moderator.

He formed the Milton Keynes Theatre & Gallery Company to get the city centre theatre built. They got the first Lottery grant, plus a grant from the Commission for New Towns. The theatre was built on time and ‘All Change’ was the first production.

He bemoaned the current state of the Arts and hoped that they might be restored by the new government.