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, it was not a conventional musical group or band as it had no permanent line-up. Members would perform with each other on an ad-hoc basis as situations demanded.

It started out as a study group for singers, meeting once a week at MacColl and 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 MacColl's writing and direction, and Seeger's musical direction, they went on to produce an annual show called the Festival of Fools, a satirical review of the previous year which always drew capacity audiences but attracted little attention from either national or niche folk music press. Staged each Christmas season for five years, they moved rapidly on three stages through sketches and songs, loosely based around folk customs. The first edition in 1966 was performed in the back room of a North London pub, the New Merlin's Cave. Later shows took place at the club's new venue the Union Tavern. Members of the group built sets, made props and costumes, rigged sound and light systems, managed front of house, acted, sang and played, all while holding daytime jobs.

Members of the group at various times included Frankie Armstrong, Bob Blair, Brian Byrne (UK), Helen Campbell (UK), Jim Carroll (UK), Phil Colclough, Aldwyn Cooper, Ted Culver, John Faulkner, Richard Humm, Allen Ives, Donneil Kennedy, Sandra Kerr, Paul Lenihan, Pat Mackenzie, Jim O'Connor, Maggie O'Murphy, Charles Parker, Brian Pearson, Michael Rosen, Buff Rosenthal, Susanna Steele, Denis Turner, Jack Warshaw, Terry Yarnell and others who joined for individual Festival of Fools shows.

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