Significant People: Colin Wilson
This article was published in the SJT Circular during 2020.Colin Wilson: From Stephen Joseph To Stephen King
by Simon MurgatroydIf you’re a fan of the author Stephen King, you might have been watching the thriller The Outsider on Sky or have read the 2018 novel upon which it’s based.
The title of the book is derived from the most famous work by the English philosopher and writer, Colin Wilson, who came to prominence during the mid-1950s. King acknowledges the debt Wilson by opening his novel with a quote from one of Wilson’s other works.
Wilson’s The Outsider was a critically acclaimed and best-selling existentialist philosophical text which explored the role of the ‘outsider’ in significant literary and cultural texts.
Which takes us from the Stephen King connection to the Stephen Joseph connection. Stephen Joseph founded Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre in Scarborough in 1955 and, during its formative years, was constantly trying to raise the profile of and raise interest in his theatre in the round project and ideas.
Which, rather bizarrely, led to Colin Wilson.
The Outsider had been released in 1956 to extraordinary critical acclaim and the initial print-run of 5,000 book sold out in a single day. It’s estimated he earned £20,000 in royalties and he became an overnight sensation.
He was considered one of the ‘Angry Young Men’ of British Literature and was thrust into literary and theatrical circles meeting many other esteemed writers. Wilson also yearned to write a play and his newfound fame led to him coming into contact with George Devine, one of the founders of the Royal Court Theatre, who expressed interest in working with Wilson.
However, Wilson’s fall from grace was as abrupt as his rise and the following year, his follow-up to The Outsider was roundly criticised from all sides. He found himself falling from favour and his debut play was rejected by the Royal Court.
Wilson was from Leicester and he knew the writer David Campton - who was the first resident playwright at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, a key figure in the company's first decade and a close friend of Stephen Joseph. Through Campton, Wilson became aware of Stephen Joseph and his theatre company in Scarborough.
Stung by his Royal Court rejection, Wilson wrote to Stephen Joseph during September 1957 offering his play, The Death of God, to Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre company whilst suggesting his fame and connections would lead to guaranteed publicity and financial success.
He also suggested it would be one in the eye for the Royal Court Theatre if a rival theatre staged the play and enjoyed success with it. Such was his belief in his own talents, that Wilson’s correspondence painted a picture of his and Stephen’s partnership leading to Theatre In The Round becoming a force to rival the Royal Court.
It’s fair to say, Wilson had no end of belief in his own genius.
Stephen didn’t stage The Death of God, but he commissioned Wilson to write a new play, Viennese Interlude, which was staged at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre during December 1959 in a double bill with Strindberg’s Miss Julie.
Directed by Stephen Joseph, the three-hander play chronicled an imagined encounter between Strindberg and a student of philosophy. Originally the role of a waiter was due to be played by Alan Ayckbourn, but he was called up for a short-lived National Service and was unable to perform in the role; he did, however, perform it the following year in a one- off performance in London.
The play, which received rather poor reviews, did attract publicity even though Wilson’s star had fallen considerably by this stage and he did not come up to Scarborough to see the play as he was, according to several newspaper reports, waiting for it to be staged in London.
The play, it can be safely said, did not set the world afire nor establish Wilson’s credentials as a playwright. Further correspondence shows Stephen becoming quite frustrated with Wilson and his inability or discipline to write a full-length play or accept that he might benefit from learning more about playwriting and theatre in the round. Stephen stayed in contact with Wilson though and continued to encourage him to write which led in 1963 to the theatre announcing the world premiere of a full-length thriller by Wilson, Necessary Doubt.
However, Wilson never finished writing the play (it later became a television screenplay before being adapted into a novel) and Stephen pulled it from the season and replaced it with a triple bill of plays by James Saunders.
This marked the end of Colin Wilson’s short-lived relationship with Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre. It achieved nothing of what either Wilson nor Stephen Joseph hoped and certainly the connection with Wilson had no appreciable benefit for Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre.
Wilson himself became a prolific writer of non-fiction and fiction, although he never re- attained the popularity or notoriety of his first book The Outsider and his play-writing career never amounted to anything more than Viennese Interlude at the Library Theatre. Wilson died in 2013 and is still remembered for The Outsider.
The book which - rather tenuously! - connects him to Stephen King to Stephen Joseph.
With thanks to Dr Paul Elsam who extensively explores Colin Wilson’s relationship with Stephen Joseph in extensive detail in his book Stephen Joseph: Theatre Pioneer and Provocateur.
Article by and copyright of Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce this article without permission of the copyright holder.