While he was a student at the East 15 Acting School in 1967, Mike Bradwell, along with Rob Walker, who went on to run the Half Moon theatre in Alie Street, Whitechapel, worked as a fly-man, lowering and raising scenery, on Joan Littlewood’s production of The Marie Lloyd Story at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.
I was in it, aged 19, but didn’t get to talk to Mike until decades later. He told me that, after a performance, he introduced himself to Joan at the bar. “What do you want to do?” she asked him. “Form my own company,” he answered. “Well fuck off and get on with it,” said Joan. He did.