CULTURE: A time to reflect before the new era begins; Terry Grimley looks at an exhibition celebrating the history of Mac.

Byline: Terry Grimley

Nowadays the term "social engineering" has such a pejorative connotation that it sounds really quaint to hear it being used with enthusiasm.

You can hear it being used in this way by the late John English, founder of Mac, formerly known as the Midlands Arts Centre for Young People, in a vintage film which forms part of a new exhibition marking the centre's imminent closure for redevelopment.

The exhibition, called Do You Remember the First Time?, has been set out in a mock-domestic setting, evocative of the centre's early days, in the difficult bar exhibition area, with a riotous display of photographs stretching down the adjoining corridor.

English was a visionary whose first career was in industry but whose heart was in the theatre. It's worth making the effort now to remember that his idea of an arts centre in a parkland setting where children would be inoculated with a love of the arts pre-dated the Clean Air Act.

So while it now sounds odd to hear the introductory commentary to this short TV documentary, dating from the early 1960s, describing these children's lives as "dominated by factory chimneys", English himself sounds remarkably farsighted when he says: "The Americans are already talking about the post-industrial society, and it's something that every developing country is going to have to look at."

What English did not anticipate was that he would get his dream up and running (thanks to an alliance with Alderman, later Sir, Frank Price, Birmingham's most dynamic politician of the 1960s) just as Britain was about to cross a social rubicon. This was the year 1963, "between the Chatterley Trial and the Beatles' first LP", as Philip Larkin's famous poem puts it, which unleashed the rebellious 60s. Almost overnight it was possible for a concept which had seemed revolutionary and far-sighted to appear paternalistic and complacent.

This shift threw the centre off-balance for some time, as did the fact that it was never actually built as English imagined it. In the film we see him in a meeting with architects discussing not one but two theatres - the Swan and the Cygnet - which both remain unbuilt.

The pounds 13.6 million development which begins in April will rationalise and rejuvenate the higgledy-piggledy complex of buildings which has grown up since the 1960s, but the addition of a medium-scale theatre which would move Mac into a new dimension remains a long-term aspiration.

Meanwhile, Mac has served many thousands of people both as audiences members and participants in courses and community productions. Though no longer intended only to serve children, it does still serve them and is probably now on to its third generation.

The photographs give a sense of the range of activities that have taken place here over 40 years. Captions would have been useful (how many people, for example, will correctly identify the late Karlheinz Stockhausen, glowering at the camera during rehearsals for the performance of Sternklang in the park in 1992?) but no one could deny that it's a lively mix.

The late-lamented Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre gets a section to itself and the once-resident professional theatre company is recalled in a production shot from Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (directed by a 22 year-old Tony Robinson who is also glimpsed in the film).

More recently some of Mac's finest hours are recalled in the homegrown musical productions with young community casts. I'm not sure which some of these are, but they definitely include Bernstein's Mass, celebrating the decade of Mac's birth as part of the Towards the Millennium festival.

Do You Remember the First Time? is on show at Mac, Cannon Hill Park, until April 6 (daily 9am-11pm, admission free).

CAPTION(S):

An event to mark the laying of the first brick for Foyle House in 1963. Far left is Beryl Foyle, to the far right of that group is Frank Price holding the plans (with dark jacket, glasses and moustache), on the other side of the 'Site of Foyle House' sign, looking on is Mollie English and to her right, John English