The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (play)
Encyclopedia
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a play by Stephen Lowe, adapted from the classic working-class novel
, by Robert Tressell
.
It was first produced by Joint Stock
in Plymouth on 14 September 1978, directed by William Gaskill
. The production then toured the country, with performances in London at Riverside Studios
in October.
As with other Joint Stock shows, the project began with a workshop in which Lowe, Gaskill and the actors explored ideas and material for the play. Lowe then worked alone for two months writing the script; finally, the company came together again for a conventional six-week rehearsal process. The actors who took part in the workshop, and who also made up the original cast, were Bruce Alexander
, Christian Burgess, Peter-Hugo Daly
, Ian Ireland
, Fred Pearson, Harriet Walter
and Mark Wing-Davey
.
Harriet Walter, who played the role of Bert (a boy apprentice), writes of the original production: "I had spent most of the evening under a table scraping out paint tins, and yet I remain prouder of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists than of most other shows I have been involved with. The reason for this is simple. We had time.... The show belonged to us all. Every experience in the last six months, whether ordeal or treat, had bound our imaginations together and this informed the quality of the work."
Among the many positive reviews of Lowe's play, Irving Wardle wrote of the original production: "...it is an independent work of great skill and integrity, putting the original to the test of physical action and personal experience... for those who still find England blanketed with a thick fog of political evasion it is sheer pleasure to watch this lucid, beautifully organised account of the roots of our present industrial chaos."
There have been many revivals of the play since 1978. In July 1983, John Adams directed the play at the Half Moon Theatre
in London, with a cast including Josie Lawrence
. In 1985 Stephen Daldry
directed a production for Metro Theatre, which toured until 1987. In February 1991, John Adams directed the play again, a touring production for Birmingham Rep; the tour travelled as far as Birmingham, Alabama
. Stephen Daldry
directed the play again in 1998, with a co-production by Theatre Royal Stratford East
and the Liverpool Playhouse
. In 2011, Townsend Productions produced a two handed version of Lowe's play which is currently touring the UK.
In 2010 Lowe worked with South African company Isango Portobello
on a new version of his play, setting it in 1950s Cape Town. Directed by Mark Dornford-May
, with musical direction by Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Izigwili Ezidlakazelayo opened at the Fugard Theatre, District Six, Cape Town in October 2010. This production is due to visit the Hackney Empire
in May 2012.
Tressell's novel had affected Lowe profoundly, when he first read it as a young man. "My father, unlike Owen in almost every aspect, suffered like him from TB
and had been a brickie and decorator before the war. The attitude of the workers to socialism
seemed, in my young way, to be exactly like the one I encountered when I heatedly argued with family. In a way, I identified with Owen. Owen also became the father I wanted badly. My relationship with my own father at that time was at its lowest. He, Owen, was a man alone who had not given in. The bastards couldn't grind him down. The analysis of society was not what struck me, because I already... had come to these beliefs. It did not, in that sense, convert me. It did something much more fundamental. It spoke to me directly, out of intense pain, saying "You're not mad. You're not on your own."... It was the nearest to finding a father, a friend across that time, that I had ever known. I tried to persuade anyone to read it. It seemed irresistible to me. It still does."
Apart from politics, a key theme in Lowe's play is work itself. Since physical labour was so central to the novel, it played a large part in the Joint Stock workshop. The company worked in the morning refurbishing an old warehouse as an annexe for Dartington College of Arts
, supervised by a professional site foreman.
In the play, apart from their poverty and worries about keeping their job, most of the time the men are also frustrated at not being allowed to do a good job. (The bosses are not really interested in the quality of the work, their main interest is in keeping down costs to make more profit.) So the Moorish room episode, in which Owen is given the chance to use his skills to the full, is a key part of Lowe's play. Even though he knows that his work will only be enjoyed by the bosses, Owen desperately wants to do the job:
OWEN: "Just gi' me the chance of it, eh? I could do a good job. No slapping paint over rotten wood. Hearing the worms chewing away behind the paint. No papering over cracks. Burn the paint right back. Strip it down. Treat the walls. Stop the cracks. Dry it. Clean base. Three coats of white. Clean canvas. No wood that crumbles to dust. No wall to powder. Real work. Just once. I'm due. It's my right."
Hunter takes on a skilled man (Easton) at cut rate (six and half pence). Easton has been unemployed for a long time, and he and his wife have a baby on the way.
Whenever Hunter visits the site, the men are terrified he will find some excuse to sack them. This time, he gets Crass to suggest who to sack to make room for Easton. Crass mentions Owen, "wi' his far-fetched ideas", and also "them old men, sir. It’s them what’s holdin’ us back… Allers trying to do it proper.“ Hunter shouts at a terrified Linden - the oldest of the men - for taking too long cleaning down a door before painting. Later, he catches Linden smoking on the job and sacks him on the spot.
When the men break - for breakfast or for their dinner – they often talk about politics. One of them - Owen - is a socialist and he tries to convince his workmates that the cause of the poverty which they all fear is not foreign labour, overpopulation or machines but the capitalist system. Later, he demonstrates the great Money Trick with slices of bread and pocket-knives: showing that in our current system, money only makes the bosses richer while leaving the workers as poor and insecure as ever.
Owen is summoned to see Rushton. The men think he is going to be sacked because of his politics. Instead, he is offered a special job of work, to decorate the drawing-room of The Cave in Moorish style (Mayor Sweater has seen something similar in Paris). Owen, a skilled sign-writer, jumps at the chance of using his skills to the full, even offering to prepare the designs in his own time. Rushton tells Hunter that this job at least must be done properly: three (not two) coats of white paint, and gold leaf (not gold paint). With labour and materials, they estimate that work on the Moorish room will cost about fifteen pounds; but they can charge Mayor Sweater forty-five.
The morning before the annual works outing (the Beano
), work on the house is almost finished and the men are worried that there will be a "slaughter". Crass reassures Easton that he (Easton) will be last to be laid off
, because he is working at cut rate. Meanwhile, Owen teaches Bert how to apply gold leaf
to the pattern in the Moorish room.
The Beano. Outside a country pub, the men relax - play skittles, drink beer, joke and talk (Owen has agreed not to talk about politics for one day). Easton borrows some tackle from the landlord, and takes Bert fishing. When it's time for the meal, they all try to find a seat as far away from Hunter as possible. The men stand while Hunter says grace, but he turns into a sermon (it's Whit
, and Hunter is very religious); in the end the men sit down and the waitress starts serving the soup before he's finished.
After they've eaten their fill and are sitting smoking, Crass gives a report on the finances for the Beano. Rushton, Mayor Sweater and some of the other bosses are there now, at another table. There are toasts to Rushton, Hunter and Mayor Sweater, and each replies with a speech. Hunter just gives a few words of thanks; Rushton talks about how the men and the masters depend on each other, "the men work with their hands, the masters with their brains..."; and Mayor Sweater makes a political speech, attacking socialists, "Most of those sorts are chaps who are too lazy to work their livin'". Crass challenges Owen to respond, but when Owen says nothing Crass mocks him as a coward. So, Harlow defends Owen and challenges what Mayor Sweater has said: about socialists; the idea that the men don't use their brains at work and that the men and the masters have common interests. Crass responds by calling for a sing-song; Crass himself sings an anti-political music hall
song Two Lovely Black Eyes
.
On the last day's work on The Cave, Hunter calls together the skilled men. He tells them that he will only pay six and half pence and hour from now on, "take it or leave it." The men decide to stand up to Hunter and refuse to work at this new rate, "He's got to have the skilled men." But when Crass tells them that one of them - Easton - is already working at the new rate, the men realise they have to accept it.
Mayor Sweater and his wife give a tea party
to show off the Moorish Room, and then hold a secret meeting of Mugsborough council: they agree to get Sweater elected to Parliament.
The last part of the play is a series of interlocking short scenes. Crass and Easton work on a coffin; at Owen's house, Bert makes a child's wheelbarrow (a present for Easton's baby) while Owen paints a banner; Hunter reckons up the final costs of the Moorish Room, his obsession with numbers (the costs) scrambling in his mind with apocalyptic images from the Bible. Philpott collects a coffin plate from Owen (it's for Linden's funeral, he died in the workhouse
); Hunter, in the grip of his calculating/religious madness, cuts his wrists. Crass takes over as works foreman. Harlow, sacked by Hunter after the Beano for his "far fetched ideas", comes to persuade Owen to come to a Labour meeting. Owen says, "we've got to hold out for the works, not go for the crumbs", but agrees to come. The play ends with them raising the banner which Owen has been working on: "Workers Unite!"
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is a novel by Robert Tressell first published in 1914 after his death in 1911. An explicitly political work, it is widely regarded as a classic of working-class literature.-Background:...
, by Robert Tressell
Robert Tressell
Robert Tressell was the nom-de-plume of Robert Croker, latterly Robert Noonan, an Irish writer best known for his novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.-Early life:...
.
It was first produced by Joint Stock
Joint Stock Theatre Company
The Joint Stock Theatre Company was founded in London 1974 by David Hare, Max Stafford-Clark and David Aukin. The director William Gaskill was also an important part of the company. It was primarily a new work company....
in Plymouth on 14 September 1978, directed by William Gaskill
William Gaskill
William 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
. The production then toured the country, with performances in London at Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
in October.
As with other Joint Stock shows, the project began with a workshop in which Lowe, Gaskill and the actors explored ideas and material for the play. Lowe then worked alone for two months writing the script; finally, the company came together again for a conventional six-week rehearsal process. The actors who took part in the workshop, and who also made up the original cast, were Bruce Alexander
Bruce Alexander
Bruce Alexander is an English actor, perhaps most famous for his portrayal of Superintendent Mullet in the ITV television series A Touch of Frost produced by Yorkshire Television in the United Kingdom, in which he acted as the superior of the main character Detective Inspector William "Jack" Frost,...
, Christian Burgess, Peter-Hugo Daly
Peter-Hugo Daly
Peter-Hugo Daly is an actor and musician. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Daly was a member of new wave band the Cross along with fellow actor Phil Daniels. The band released a single, "Kill Another Night" on RCA Records in 1979...
, Ian Ireland
Kenny Ireland
Kenny Ireland is a Scottish actor and theatre director, best known to television viewers as part of Victoria Wood's 'rep' company in the BBC series Victoria Wood As Seen On TV.-Career:...
, Fred Pearson, Harriet Walter
Harriet Walter
Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE is a British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The TimesShe was educated at...
and Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey is a British actor and director.-Early life and career:The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing, Wing-Davey went to school at Woolverstone Hall School, before studying at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Footlights from 1967 to 1970.He had a featured...
.
Harriet Walter, who played the role of Bert (a boy apprentice), writes of the original production: "I had spent most of the evening under a table scraping out paint tins, and yet I remain prouder of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists than of most other shows I have been involved with. The reason for this is simple. We had time.... The show belonged to us all. Every experience in the last six months, whether ordeal or treat, had bound our imaginations together and this informed the quality of the work."
Among the many positive reviews of Lowe's play, Irving Wardle wrote of the original production: "...it is an independent work of great skill and integrity, putting the original to the test of physical action and personal experience... for those who still find England blanketed with a thick fog of political evasion it is sheer pleasure to watch this lucid, beautifully organised account of the roots of our present industrial chaos."
There have been many revivals of the play since 1978. In July 1983, John Adams directed the play at the Half Moon Theatre
Half Moon Theatre
The Half Moon Theatre Company was formed in 1972 in a rented synagogue in Alie Street, Aldgate, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Half Moon Passage was the name of a nearby alley...
in London, with a cast including Josie Lawrence
Josie Lawrence
Josie Lawrence is a British comedienne and actress best known for her work with the Comedy Store Players improvisational troupe, the television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? and more recently her role as Manda Best in EastEnders....
. In 1985 Stephen Daldry
Stephen Daldry
Stephen David Daldry, CBE is an English theatre and film director and producer, as well as a three-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning director.-Early years:...
directed a production for Metro Theatre, which toured until 1987. In February 1991, John Adams directed the play again, a touring production for Birmingham Rep; the tour travelled as far as Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
. Stephen Daldry
Stephen Daldry
Stephen David Daldry, CBE is an English theatre and film director and producer, as well as a three-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning director.-Early years:...
directed the play again in 1998, with a co-production by Theatre Royal Stratford East
Theatre Royal Stratford East
The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Since 1953, it has been the home of the Theatre Workshop company.-History:...
and the Liverpool Playhouse
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
. In 2011, Townsend Productions produced a two handed version of Lowe's play which is currently touring the UK.
In 2010 Lowe worked with South African company Isango Portobello
Isango Portobello
Isango is a Cape Town based theatre company led by director Mark Dornford-May and music directors Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis. Most of the company members are drawn from the townships around Cape Town...
on a new version of his play, setting it in 1950s Cape Town. Directed by Mark Dornford-May
Mark Dornford-May
Mark Dornford-May is a British-born South African theatre and film director.-Early life:Mark Dornford-May was born on his Grandfathers farm near Eastoft in Yorkshire. His paternal Grandfather was a miner on the Yorkshire coalfields...
, with musical direction by Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Izigwili Ezidlakazelayo opened at the Fugard Theatre, District Six, Cape Town in October 2010. This production is due to visit the Hackney Empire
Hackney Empire
The Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney, built in 1901 as a music hall.-History:Hackney Empire is a grade II* listed building...
in May 2012.
Themes: politics and work
The play is about a group of painters and decorators and their struggle for survival in a complacent and stagnating Edwardian England.Tressell's novel had affected Lowe profoundly, when he first read it as a young man. "My father, unlike Owen in almost every aspect, suffered like him from TB
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
and had been a brickie and decorator before the war. The attitude of the workers to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
seemed, in my young way, to be exactly like the one I encountered when I heatedly argued with family. In a way, I identified with Owen. Owen also became the father I wanted badly. My relationship with my own father at that time was at its lowest. He, Owen, was a man alone who had not given in. The bastards couldn't grind him down. The analysis of society was not what struck me, because I already... had come to these beliefs. It did not, in that sense, convert me. It did something much more fundamental. It spoke to me directly, out of intense pain, saying "You're not mad. You're not on your own."... It was the nearest to finding a father, a friend across that time, that I had ever known. I tried to persuade anyone to read it. It seemed irresistible to me. It still does."
Apart from politics, a key theme in Lowe's play is work itself. Since physical labour was so central to the novel, it played a large part in the Joint Stock workshop. The company worked in the morning refurbishing an old warehouse as an annexe for Dartington College of Arts
Dartington College of Arts
Dartington College of Arts was a specialist arts institution near Totnes, Devon, South West England, it specialized in post-dramatic theatre, music, choreography, Performance Writing and visual performance, focusing on a performative and multi-disciplinary approach to the arts. In addition to this,...
, supervised by a professional site foreman.
In the play, apart from their poverty and worries about keeping their job, most of the time the men are also frustrated at not being allowed to do a good job. (The bosses are not really interested in the quality of the work, their main interest is in keeping down costs to make more profit.) So the Moorish room episode, in which Owen is given the chance to use his skills to the full, is a key part of Lowe's play. Even though he knows that his work will only be enjoyed by the bosses, Owen desperately wants to do the job:
OWEN: "Just gi' me the chance of it, eh? I could do a good job. No slapping paint over rotten wood. Hearing the worms chewing away behind the paint. No papering over cracks. Burn the paint right back. Strip it down. Treat the walls. Stop the cracks. Dry it. Clean base. Three coats of white. Clean canvas. No wood that crumbles to dust. No wall to powder. Real work. Just once. I'm due. It's my right."
Plot
The play is about a group of house-painters in Mugsborough in 1906: skilled painters, labourers, an apprentice boy (Bert); and their bosses, site foreman (Crass), works foreman (Hunter), and the owner of the firm (Rushton). Skilled men earn seven pence per hour, labourers five pence and the first year apprentice earns nothing; as works foreman, Hunter gets two per cent of the firm’s profits, so he is always looking to screw down costs. Rushton's firm is redecorating a house, The Cave, owned by Mayor Sweater.Hunter takes on a skilled man (Easton) at cut rate (six and half pence). Easton has been unemployed for a long time, and he and his wife have a baby on the way.
Whenever Hunter visits the site, the men are terrified he will find some excuse to sack them. This time, he gets Crass to suggest who to sack to make room for Easton. Crass mentions Owen, "wi' his far-fetched ideas", and also "them old men, sir. It’s them what’s holdin’ us back… Allers trying to do it proper.“ Hunter shouts at a terrified Linden - the oldest of the men - for taking too long cleaning down a door before painting. Later, he catches Linden smoking on the job and sacks him on the spot.
When the men break - for breakfast or for their dinner – they often talk about politics. One of them - Owen - is a socialist and he tries to convince his workmates that the cause of the poverty which they all fear is not foreign labour, overpopulation or machines but the capitalist system. Later, he demonstrates the great Money Trick with slices of bread and pocket-knives: showing that in our current system, money only makes the bosses richer while leaving the workers as poor and insecure as ever.
Owen is summoned to see Rushton. The men think he is going to be sacked because of his politics. Instead, he is offered a special job of work, to decorate the drawing-room of The Cave in Moorish style (Mayor Sweater has seen something similar in Paris). Owen, a skilled sign-writer, jumps at the chance of using his skills to the full, even offering to prepare the designs in his own time. Rushton tells Hunter that this job at least must be done properly: three (not two) coats of white paint, and gold leaf (not gold paint). With labour and materials, they estimate that work on the Moorish room will cost about fifteen pounds; but they can charge Mayor Sweater forty-five.
The morning before the annual works outing (the Beano
Bean-feast
A bean-feast is primarily an annual dinner given by an employer to his workmen. By extension, colloquially, it describes any jollification. The word, and its shorter form "beano," are fairly common in Britain, less known in the United States....
), work on the house is almost finished and the men are worried that there will be a "slaughter". Crass reassures Easton that he (Easton) will be last to be laid off
Layoff
Layoff , also called redundancy in the UK, is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or a group of employees for business reasons, such as when certain positions are no longer necessary or when a business slow-down occurs...
, because he is working at cut rate. Meanwhile, Owen teaches Bert how to apply gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
to the pattern in the Moorish room.
The Beano. Outside a country pub, the men relax - play skittles, drink beer, joke and talk (Owen has agreed not to talk about politics for one day). Easton borrows some tackle from the landlord, and takes Bert fishing. When it's time for the meal, they all try to find a seat as far away from Hunter as possible. The men stand while Hunter says grace, but he turns into a sermon (it's Whit
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
, and Hunter is very religious); in the end the men sit down and the waitress starts serving the soup before he's finished.
After they've eaten their fill and are sitting smoking, Crass gives a report on the finances for the Beano. Rushton, Mayor Sweater and some of the other bosses are there now, at another table. There are toasts to Rushton, Hunter and Mayor Sweater, and each replies with a speech. Hunter just gives a few words of thanks; Rushton talks about how the men and the masters depend on each other, "the men work with their hands, the masters with their brains..."; and Mayor Sweater makes a political speech, attacking socialists, "Most of those sorts are chaps who are too lazy to work their livin'". Crass challenges Owen to respond, but when Owen says nothing Crass mocks him as a coward. So, Harlow defends Owen and challenges what Mayor Sweater has said: about socialists; the idea that the men don't use their brains at work and that the men and the masters have common interests. Crass responds by calling for a sing-song; Crass himself sings an anti-political music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
song Two Lovely Black Eyes
Charles Coborn
Charles Coborn was a British music hall singer and comedian born in Stepney, east London.He was born Charles Whitton McCallum, and adopted his stage name from Coborn Road, near Mile End...
.
On the last day's work on The Cave, Hunter calls together the skilled men. He tells them that he will only pay six and half pence and hour from now on, "take it or leave it." The men decide to stand up to Hunter and refuse to work at this new rate, "He's got to have the skilled men." But when Crass tells them that one of them - Easton - is already working at the new rate, the men realise they have to accept it.
Mayor Sweater and his wife give a tea party
Tea party
A tea party is a formal, ritualized gathering for afternoon tea.Formal tea parties are often characterized by the use of prestige utensils, such as bone china or silver. The table is made to look its prettiest, with cloth napkins and matching cups and plates. In addition to tea, larger parties may...
to show off the Moorish Room, and then hold a secret meeting of Mugsborough council: they agree to get Sweater elected to Parliament.
The last part of the play is a series of interlocking short scenes. Crass and Easton work on a coffin; at Owen's house, Bert makes a child's wheelbarrow (a present for Easton's baby) while Owen paints a banner; Hunter reckons up the final costs of the Moorish Room, his obsession with numbers (the costs) scrambling in his mind with apocalyptic images from the Bible. Philpott collects a coffin plate from Owen (it's for Linden's funeral, he died in the workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
); Hunter, in the grip of his calculating/religious madness, cuts his wrists. Crass takes over as works foreman. Harlow, sacked by Hunter after the Beano for his "far fetched ideas", comes to persuade Owen to come to a Labour meeting. Owen says, "we've got to hold out for the works, not go for the crumbs", but agrees to come. The play ends with them raising the banner which Owen has been working on: "Workers Unite!"
Sources
- Wardle, Irving, Masterly evening - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at Riverside Studios. The Times, October 13, 1978; pg. 11.
- Lowe, Stephen, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, based on the book by Robert Tressell. Joint Stock Theatre Company, 1978. Revised ed., London, Methuen, 1983. ISBN 0413544001
- Lowe, Stephen, Joint Stock and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists: Letters from a workshop. Theatre Papers no. 2, Dartington College of Arts, 1979. ISBN 03098036
- Masters, Anthony, review of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at the Half Moon. The Times, July 19, 1983; pg. 8.
- Kershaw, Baz, Building an unstable pyramid - the fragmentation of British alternative theatre; in New Theatre Quarterly, Volume XI no 36, November 1993; p 348-356.
- Walter, Harriet, Other People's Shoes. Thoughts on Acting. London, Nick Hern Books, 2003. ISBN 9781854597519
- Eyre, Richard and Wright, Nicholas, Changing stages: a view of British Theatre in the twentieth century. London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000; p286-7. ISBN 0747547890
- Gordon, Fiona, Isango Portobello makes magic, review of South African production. 29 Oct 2010.
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at the Fugard, preview article from www.theartsmag.com, October 2010.
- Ragged Trousered Philanthropists page on Stephen Lowe's website.