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The WestbrookJazz Moving Picture Show has moved here
Remembering John and Margery Styles, founder members of Smith’s Academy.
25 March 2025
ENGINEER OF THE IMAGINATION
JOHN FOX (1938 - 2025)
JOHN FOX (1938 - 2025)
No. 91
John Fox has died. Showman, visionary and inspirational theatre director, John described his company The Welfare State as “engineers of the imagination”. He believed in the transformative power of Art; that Art should be part of the daily life of the community, the artist as essential as the butcher, the baker, the barber, the candlestick maker. He wanted to liberate the Arts from the Opera House, the Theatre, the Gallery and the Concert Hall, and take Art into the open air, to wherever people gather.
As a friend and collaborator I worked with John on numerous productions throughout the 1970s, first with the Welfare State and then The Cosmic Circus. John was able to combine his visionary ideas with the practical skill to realise them. He drove himself, and those around him, with ferocious energy. In his dealings with the bureaucrats and gate-keepers of the art world he would never take ‘no’ for an answer. How he managed to get the authorities to agree to the staging of an epic and subversive “The Apocalyptic High Dive into the Pit of Molten Fire” in the moat of the Tower of London, I cannot imagine.
In the early 70s John arranged a meeting with Kate and me to discuss a three-person piece combining theatre, art and music. In the event the project didn’t come to fruition. But that meeting was a seminal one for Kate and me.
In the early 70s John arranged a meeting with Kate and me to discuss a three-person piece combining theatre, art and music. In the event the project didn’t come to fruition. But that meeting was a seminal one for Kate and me.
I first got talking to John at The Lobster Pot, on the beach at Instow in North Devon, at that time a platform for experimental theatre, art and music. We had just done a gig with the ten-piece band. John’s group had performed the night before. The dialogue begun that morning carried on for years, and opened up a world of possibilities. I asked John to take part a new composition, Earthrise, at the Mermaid Theatre. The idea of the mixed media circus took root. At the same time John invited me to work with The Welfare State on some of their productions. These were sitespecific events, each designed for a particular occasion, requiring its own music. As sometime ‘musical director’ I wrote the music, to be performed by whatever musicians were available. John wrote lyrics for each show, his own ‘folk songs’. Songs like “Fortune Song” and “Lady Howerd’s Coach” became staples in the repertoire of Solid Gold Cadillac (and later the Brass Band). “Mermaid Song” was another.
Welfare State band 1970s
on the left Sue Gill, John Fox
on the left Sue Gill, John Fox
John wanted to create for the modern world an Art equivalent to traditional popular entertainment, ceremonies and rituals: mummers plays, waits, morris men, travelling circus troupes, the tent shows of early Jazz, clowns, fire eaters, jugglers, magicians and fairground artistes. Working with the State often meant living in caravans and tents. For a while the company was encamped in a disused tip on the outskirts of Burnley.
After a decade of creative ferment and some spectacular productions, John and I went our different ways. Around that time, for up and coming artists of the ’alternative’ scene, there was a choice: whether to infiltrate the arts establishment in the hope of changing the culture from within, or to shun the mainstream art business and get back to grass roots to make art based in the local community. John Fox and Sue Gill took the latter path. Based at Ulverston in the Lake District they set about creating an independent environment for the arts, with The Welfare State and, latterly, their new company Dead Good Guides. They became a major force in the region and beyond, and their work is a lasting testament to John’s ‘imagination and vision’ - to use the words of William Blake.
Mike Westbrook
Listen to Mermaid Song with solid gold cadillac
“Foxy’s Song Book”
A collection of 51 songs with lyrics by John Fox and his drawings, set to music by eight composers in styles including pop, lullaby, anthem, carols, comic and folk ballads, music hall, nursery rhymes, secular prayers and rants, with piano accompaniment. Available at
www.deadgoodguides.co.uk
“Foxy’s Song Book”
A collection of 51 songs with lyrics by John Fox and his drawings, set to music by eight composers in styles including pop, lullaby, anthem, carols, comic and folk ballads, music hall, nursery rhymes, secular prayers and rants, with piano accompaniment. Available at
www.deadgoodguides.co.uk
Kate & Mike Westbrook
