The Ballad of the Cosmo Cafe
On 16 and 17 November, Pamela Howard’s new production The Ballad of the Cosmo Café brings to life the memories of patrons at the Finchley Road’s beloved restaurant, which welcomed a community of European artists and intellectuals through its doors and served as a home from home, providing a place for émigrées and refugees to embrace their new lives in a new land whilst immersing themselves in the smells, tastes and sounds of their old ones.
This unique event, part of the nation-wide Insiders Outsiders festival which celebrates the indelible contributions of emigrant communities to the cultural life of Britain, sees some of the capital’s finest professional actors working alongside students from Central and musical collaborators from the Royal College of Music to share these stories of life and.
The Ballad of the Cosmo Café is an original, immersive production which recreates the much-loved Finchley Road café. Based on selected memories and stories from the Cosmo research group and translated into lyrics by the Cosmo writers’ group, audiences enter the Cosmo Café as customers. Seating is around vacant café tables, with the performance – by eight of the UK’s finest senior performers who tell their stories in speech and song – serving as a unique recreation of place and atmosphere.
The Cosmo Café was once considered a ‘sanctuary’ for refugees fleeing oppression during the middle of the twentieth century. It was a favourite haunt of Sigmund Freud, and become an intellectual salon and a gathering place for intellectuals and artists. The café was a proving ground and the birthplace for important pieces of work which enriched and enhanced the wider, cultural life of England. In 2013 a robust campaign supported by local community groups, the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and press including the Ham & High and the Camden New Journal, succeeded in getting the location of the legendary landmark (which closed in 1998) bestowed with a blue plaque, further cementing its status as a place of historical significance.
Performed in Singspiel, a type of German music drama and light opera production which is rarely mounted in the UK, it has been set to music by collaborators from the Royal College of Music with creative, performance and production support from the staff, students and alumni of Central.
The Ballad of the Cosmo Café was conceived, created and directed by director/ visual artist Pamela Howard OBE with writer Philip Glassborow and Music Director Brian Hughes. It has been produced by Central student Kyle Nudo (of the Creative Producing MA/MFA course) and features performances from Frank Barrie, Eleanor Crowe, Santiago Del Fosco, Stephen Grief, Shirley Jaffe, Delena Kidd, Jack Klaff, Grace Lovelass, Valeria Minifie and Stephen Rashbrook.
It plays as a part of the year-long Insiders Outsiders Festival, a nationwide arts festival celebrating the indelible contribution of refugees from Europe to British cultural life. Coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two, the festival includes exhibitions, concerts, dance and theatre performances, film screenings, walks, lectures and literary events.
Of the production, Pamela Howard said:
“I was an art student at the Slade School in 1960. I had my first student flat at the far end of Finchley Road. Every day early in the morning as I walked to Swiss Cottage Station I passed the steamed up windows of the Cosmo Café, and as I looked inside I saw elderly people all dressed up talking, reading and 4 elegant ladies playing cards. One day I plucked up the courage and sneaked in, hiding in a corner and I started to draw those ladies, for I am never without my sketchbook and am a compulsive observer of human life.
I became aware that an old man was watching me, and he told me he was a Polish artist who had been in England for 30 years. He sat down and began telling me about all the people in the café, and I realised this was a home from home for the many emigres fleeing from persecution. Austrians, Prussians, Hungarians, young Spaniards feeling from Franco’s regime… they all found refuge in the Cosmo. Finally I learned that it is always possible to restart your life, however difficult, and this is exactly the situation we see today.
I told this story to our writer Philip Glassborow, and he insisted that this Cosmo story should be bookended by Pammy’s understanding of this human tragedy. The Cosmo ballad is not a documentary, but an invented collection of memories told to our research group and set to music by colleagues from the Royal College of Music.”
Producer of The Ballad of the Cosmo Café and MFA Creative Producing student at Central Kyle Nudo said:
“As producer of this production, I couldn’t be more proud of the work we’re doing. Presenting diversity on our stage, delivering storytelling that is of its community – these are core to my values and ethos as a theatre-maker. Our principal cast’s range of talent and experience is tremendous and that’s something that audiences are responding to; clamouring for, in fact. They are most eager to see their lived experiences depicted on stage – not enough producers are doing this. Not to mention: ALL of our talent is professionally paid. This is another core tenet of my ethos as a producer, and it’s one of the reasons I came to Central: the commitment to standards of professional culture in the London theatre industry. I am very proud to have Cosmo be a contributing factor that level of professionalism.”
The Ballad of the Cosmo Café plays at St. Peter’s Church Hall in Belsize Park, with public performances on 16 and 17 November 2019. For further information and to book, please visit eventbrite.