Hi Guest
As far as I know, The Radio Ballads were unique in the sense that it was the first time that the working man's voice was used to any great length to depict working life and conditions.
Both Ewan and Charles described how the original aim of the BBC was to collect actuality in order to turn it into a script to be read by actors - Ewan became convinced that the recorded speech was powerful enough to stand on its own, without needing to be 'performed' by actors
Charles took up the cause of "the working voice" and went on to produce a number of important programmes for Midlands Radio.
What you say about Jean Newlove is, I believe correct - it was through her work with Theatre Workshop that she and Ewan got together.
I only got to meet her and Kirsty once, when we were recording choruses for Ewan's South African piece, White Wind - nice people.
I wss interested in your comparison between Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg's adaptation of The Method - don't know a great deal about it, but I was working at Conway Hall in central London (as an electrician) at the time the English Branch of the Stradberg Group had been abandoned by Stradberg's widow and left to their own devices - not a happy time for them, I don't know if they survived.
My memory of the 60s, in the North of England, was of a large working class following for folk song - I was working at the docks and was persuaded to go to my first folk club in Liverpoolby a fruit market porter - the audience was overwhelmingly made up of people like us, though I think the performers (The Spinners and Jackie McDonald) were teachers.
Most of us were evacuees from The Cavern, a wobnderful Jazz club which was being gradually taken over by 'The Mersey Beat'
Thanks for your input
Jim Carroll