Scenes from National life

Nice exhibition of photographs by Chris Arthur of the early days of the National Theatre at the theatre to mark its 50th anniversary.

Arthur had started in the lighting department of the theatre but began a photographic record of the company and took up a full time career in photography. The photos were a wonderful record of some of the early productions as well as being super images in their own right.

I loved the skin quality in a picture of Anthony Hopkins but my favourites had to be those of a rather lovely young Derek Jacobi dressed in string as Adam in Back to Methuselah!

As well as the theatre work Arthur recorded the street life around the theatre in a period of great inner city change in the 1960s.

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