AUGUST 26th ALL ABOUT A HERO

“I passionately believe in heroes….” One of Richard Attenborough’s sayings, which has often been quoted these last few days as the worlds of film, television and theatre take in the news that he has now left us.

Well, for we who worked at, and for the many actors, writers, technicians and directors who trained at, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art during the last three decades of the 20th century, there is only one modern candidate for the tile of “hero”.

RADA was set up by another great actor-director, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, in the early years of the last century. Dick Attenborough won a Leverhulme scholarship for a place there as a student as the Second World War spread around the globe.

In 1941 the Luftwaffe dropped a land-mine in Malet St, destroying the academy’s Vanbrugh Theatre, and damaging the smaller second auditorium in the basement, the Little Theatre. Dick was one of a bunch of student volunteers who worked for several days and nights trying at least to restore the smaller theatre. They slept in sleeping bags on the Gower St foyer floor, and one morning Dick awoke as a pair of lanky legs in plus-four trousers passed by his head. 

The legs went up the foyer stairs, and a white beard appeared over the mezzanine balustrade above. “It’s all right, children” said a voice with a slight Irish lilt “The theatre is going to open”. The legs, beard and voice all belonged to the great George Bernard Shaw, a member of the RADA Council, who had come to ensure sufficient funds were available for students to continue with their training and performing. 

Shaw was the greatest single financial supporter of the academy in its early days, and when he died he left RADA a third share in the royalties from his work. Once his play “Pygmalion” became the basis for the enormously successful musical “My Fair Lady” the academy was able to breathe, in financial terms, somewhat more easily than other less fortunate schools. When Richard Attenborough became Chair of the Council in 1972,  he suggested re-naming the basement auditorium, and thus it became (and remains to this day) the GBS Theatre.

By the time I joined RADA as head of the acting course in 1993, the cash-flow from the Shaw royalties had slowed down considerably. The academy was still technically a private school, struggling to cope with creeping financial problems in a set of crumbling, dusty buildings.  For some years precious little spare cash had been available, and often in times of financial crisis Richard would, being the magician he was, suddenly produce a rabbit out of the hat – in other words a donation from one of his contacts, or simply from his own pocket.  

Then suddenly in 1994 a large potential rabbit appeared in the shape of the new National Lottery, intended to support the UK’s sporting and artistic activities. Richard (by now Lord) Attenborough quickly made sure RADA was very near the front of the queue, and the rest of the Council, the Principal Nick Barter, and we the management team were marshalled into creating a detailed bid for money to refurbish and re-equip the academy’s premises. 

After some nail-biting delays, the bid succeeded, and an Arts Council grant was awarded amounting to £22.7 million. However the total cost of the project was going to be some £32 million, the balance to be achieved by “Partnership Funding”, a challenge which Richard faced without blinking. The steel and tenacity he showed in raising backing for unlikely-sounding movie blockbusters like “Ghandi” and “Cry Freedom” came into play at Gower St.

While many others have worked hard and selflessly over the years to support and sustain RADA as a world-class school, without doubt the existence of the fine buildings the academy inhabits today (and indeed the financial structure supporting the work they house) is almost entirely due to Lord A’s single-minded, fiercely focussed energy. And also, of course his ability to put to good use an unsurpassed address-book. When Her Majesty the Queen eventually came to open the new buildings one of my tasks as Vice-Principal (I’d been promoted to help Nick Barter with the multiple challenges of teaching, fund-raising and rebuilding) was to help look after the members of our Chairman’s fund-raising committee at the opening ceremony. This group consisted of some of the wealthiest, most influential people in Europe. A colleague turned to me and murmured “If a bomb goes off in this room, the insurance industry will collapse!”

There are many tales of those extraordinary years, perhaps one day to be told in another forum. Reams could be written of his sheer management skills – nobody could work a room, or run a meeting, like Lord A. Whether you were a student or a member of staff, when you found yourself in conversation with him you found yourself being really listened to. A great gift, but a skill that sprang from a deep determination to help everyone to do their best, to fulfil their potential to make the world a better place. 

There’s lots more to be said – if you missed the BBC1 television tribute to him last night, seek it out on iPlayer for a fuller picture of just how big his impact has been across the world.  But today this is just to record how grateful those of us who were involved in his work for RADA are, and will forever be, for Richard’s huge generosity, his astounding energy, and his great, kind heart.

God bless, Dick.  If ever anyone defined the phrase “The Great and the Good” it was you.  

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