The Critics Group

The Critics Group, also known as The London Critics Group, was a group of people who met to explore 'how best to apply the techniques of folk-music and drama to the folk revival' under the direction of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, with some participation from Bert Lloyd and Charles Parker. Running for eight years from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s this was not a conventional musical group as it had no permanent line-up.

It started out as a study group for singers, meeting once a week at MacColl & Seeger's home in Beckenham, attempting to raise the standards of singing. One of the main activities of the meetings was group criticism and discussion of each other's performances which subsequently earned the group its name, coined by Charles Parker when pressed for a name by a radio interviewer.

Many of the meetings were recorded, and some of these recordings are held as part of the The Charles Parker Archive which is held in the Birmingham City Archive and Heritage Service.

The group organised regular Club nights at the Union Tavern in the Farringdon Road which attracted musicians from all over the world. The best part of these evenings was often the 'lock ins' which developed into impromptu musical sessions until the early hours of the morning. Under the guidance of McColl, a noted draatist, Seeger and Parker, they went on to produce an annual show called the Festival of Fools which always attracted critical notice in the national press. Staged each Christmas for five years, they satirised events of the previous year through sketches and songs, loosely based around folk customs and songs. They were performed in the back room of a North London pub, the New Merlin's Cave.

Members of the group included Frankie Armstrong, Bob Blair, Brian Byrne (UK), Helen Campbell (UK), Jim Carroll (UK), Phil Colclough, Aldwyn Cooper, Ted Culver, John Faulkner (UK), Richard Humm, Allen Ives, Sandra Kerr, Paul Lenihan, Pat Mackenzie, Jim O'Connor, Maggie O'Murphy, Tom Paley, Brian Pearson, Michael Rosen, Buff Rosenthal, Susanna Steele, Denis Turner, Jack Warshaw, Terry Yarnell.

The group released a number of recordings on the Argo label.

In 1972 the principal performing members of the Critics Group broke away from MacColl's leadership and formed the left-wing theatre group Combine, which produced weekly events in an east London pub, the Knave of Clubs. They created songs, plays and other events in a similar manner to the Critics, culminating in the Vietnam Victory Show of April 1975 which celebrated the final liberation of Saigon.

Discography

• Poetry and Song Volumes 1-14 1966/7 Argo ZDA 50 - ZDA 63 (For use in secondary schools (11 - 16 years), edited by James Gibson and recorded in association with MacMillan & Co. Ltd.)
• A Merry Progress to London 1966 Argo ZFB 60
• Sweet Thames, Flow Softly 1966 Argo ZDA 47 (John Faulkner, Sandra Kerr, Terry Yarnell, Ted Culver and Jim O'Connor)
• Waterloo-Peterloo 1968 Argo ZFB 68 (Frankie Armstrong, John Faulkner, Brian Pearson, Denis Turner and Terry Yarnell with Sandra Kerr, Jim O'Connor and Peggy Seeger)
• Female Frolic 1968 Argo ZDA 82
• As We Were A-Sailin 1970 Argo ZDA 137
• Ye Mariners All 1970 Argo ZDA 138

Available Recordings

• 'Sweet Thames Flow Softly' Vocalion CDSML 8424 (review)

External links

• Folk Music Index
• Working Class Movement Library
• Parsley, Sage and Politics