The Renaissance Group

Book excerpt: Bruce Hastie, a young, naive Scottish engineer, comes to live in a London flat while he works as a graduate apprentice in a turbine factory. It is 1958. He has two contrasting flat-mates, selected by a special agency, a disillusioned actor, Benjamin Garrick, and a rough, crude washing machine salesman, Edward Flunk, also known as Skunk. Bruce starts work at General Turbines Limited in the smoke, grime and heat of the foundry. One lunch-break he finds his chargehand boss, a huge, strong, Yorkshireman nicknamed Heavy, reading and enjoying some Dylan Thomas poetry. This is a paradox that mystifies the class-conscious Bruce whom Heavy brands as an intellectual snob. Heavy expounds on his soapbox that the arts have been kept away from the working class, that they and society at large need saving from rampant materialism and its attendant viciousness by a good dose of the spiritual values that only poetry, art, theatre and classical music can offer. Then follows two chapters that develop the character of Skunk and Benjamin. Skunk, a self-appointed sexual conqueror of women, has the tables turned on him when he encounters an educated, beautiful but unbalanced seductress when called to fix her washing machine that supposedly has electrocuted her dog. Benjamin is sent home sick from rehearsal, accompanied by fellow actor Sally Frinton-Jones. His malaise is psychological for he is disillusioned by the theatre and his performance in it. By this time, Heavy has Bruce believing in his ideas about the need to educate the common masses in the arts. Benjamin, also a convert to Heavy’s “renaissance” through Bruce’s dogmatism, cannot persuade Sally of the practicality of those ideas. Bruce goes into action by piping Beethoven’s 5th Symphony into the motor assembly shop at General Turbines where 300 women work. The music is well received but when his report on allowing the foundryworkers time off to listen to writers, actors and poets is read by the crass managing director, Mr. Crumhorn, Bruce is fired on the spot. Undaunted, Bruce, Benjamin and fifteen members of the arts world are smuggled into the factory and, along with Heavy, begin teaching the foundryworkers the elements and meaning of theatre, music and poetry. At a de-briefing after this first experiment it is deemed a total failure by all except Heavy who urges continuance and patience with what has been started. Bruce runs out of money and needs a job so he buys a taxi and pumps beer in a local pub. By now he is friendly with Sally, and one night, while driving her to rehearsal, they make a detour to track Skunk around Soho. He makes a subterranean disappearance into a strip joint. Bruce and Sally follow but only find Monique of the Louvre doing her erotic show. Bruce, as expected, registers his disgust but follows Monique to the dressing area and there finds Skunk who turns out to be the proprietor of the establishment. Bruce unbends a little and ends up taking Monique, real name Penelope Scragg, back to her seedy flat. As when he first found Heavy reading poetry in the foundry, he is surprised again when Monique plays him her favorite piece of music, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Bruce begins to see Penelope with different eyes and he and Heavy take her to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. She learns of the Renaissance Group’s activities and is highly amused until Bruce wants her to join the group. He wants her and Skunk to soften the degrading aspects of the strip joint by requiring its customers to enter an adjoining room after the performance and receive “spiritual” renewal in the guise of poetry, music and art. Penelope laughs her head off but Skunk smells money in it and gives it a try. Love blooms between Sally and Benjamin, and they decide to get married. Bruce’s relationship with Penelope deepens, and all is going well with the artistic education of