My friend Christine Eccles, who has died aged 75, was a writer, theatre director and activist who lived out her principles and ideals with brilliant vigour, wit and energy.
In the early 1970s she set up her own theatre company, Mayday, at the newly opened Battersea Arts Centre in south London (based in the old Battersea town hall), where the plays and events she put on over the next few years confronted community issues with exuberance, playfulness and subversion.
There was Once Round Lil, Twice Round the Gasworks (1974), about the catalogue culture, living on the never-never; The Adventures of Jack Boot (1975), looking at the rise of the National Front; and The Black Shop (1975-76), exploring the working conditions at a local factory.
Other shows included All the Councillors’ Men (1976-77), about poor housing standards on Battersea’s Doddington estate, and Dead Generations (1976), which focused on John Burns, elected as a socialist MP for Battersea in 1892.
There were also rock’n’roll musicals: Urban Gorilla Rock, in 1976, about direct action, and, in 1977, the Queen’s silver jubilee year, a punk rock show, Jubulubu (an adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi), which had its run while the Sex Pistols were in the charts with God Save the Queen.
Born in Warrington, Cheshire, Christine was the second daughter of Mary (nee Cunnane), originally from Co Sligo, and Hugh Eccles, an RAF officer. She was educated at St Bernard’s convent school in Slough, Berkshire, and then went to Leeds University, graduating in 1968 with a degree in English, followed by a master’s in theatre arts. At university she became involved in a number of theatre projects with the controversialist director and teacher Albert Hunt, whose influence was apparent when she came to start up the Mayday theatre company in 1974.
Mayday’s shows played to a wide range of audiences, from playgrounds and mother and baby groups to the ICA. But after Arts Council funding ceased during the Thatcher years, the company closed in 1982.
Afterwards Christine moved into other areas of cultural work. She became an arts reviewer for publications including the Sunday Times, Time Out and City Limits, where she and I worked together for a time. She also wrote a book, The Rose Theatre (1990), about the Elizabethan playhouse.
Christine’s loyalty to Battersea – where she had lived since setting up the Mayday company – was unwavering. From the 70s onwards she was a member of Pavement, a community support group which also had a newspaper, and with the local Shaftesbury Foundation (and other charities) she worked with local children who had special educational needs. A lifelong socialist, in 1999-2000 she was chair of the Battersea Labour party.
Her greatest joy, however, was to be surrounded by family and friends, including her beloved dog, Cro, and especially to host what became known as “Crown Thursdays” (in her local pub), remembering old times and enjoying her favourite tipple, whisky.
Christine is survived by her partner, John Garrett, her son, Jack, from her marriage to Derek Thompson, which ended in divorce in 1980, three grandchildren, Ella, Alice and Harriet, and her siblings Patrick and Diana.
