© David Secombe 1990.įrom the Obituary column of The Stage: Larry Barnes Larry Barnes, ‘The Viceroy of Versatility’, Finchley. The experimental ward in Family Life was based on ‘Villa 21’, a short-lived therapeutic community set up by David Cooper-the doctor who coined the term ‘anti-psychiatry’-in the 1960s at Shenley Hospital, Hertfordshire.Speciality Acts.Photos & text: David Secombe (1/3) Posted: Janu| Author: thelondoncolumn | Filed under: Entertainment, London Types, Performers, Theatrical London | Tags: Harry Houdini, Larry Barnes, New Variety, Straitjacket escape routine, The Viceroy of Versatility | Comments Off on Speciality Acts.Photos & text: David Secombe (1/3) These films staged authentic depictions of ECT treatment filmed on location at real NHS hospitals, but also represented alterative therapeutic communities where psychotherapy and art therapy allowed individuals to express rather than repress their differences. Laing, who inspired Morgan! writer David Mercer and with whom he collaborated on his later screenplays for In Two Minds (1967) and Family Life (1971).

The film should be understood in the context of the anti-psychiatry movement, which challenged coercive practices of modern psychiatry such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as well as questioning the very idea of ‘madness’.Īnti-psychiatry is associated with key radical psychiatrists, most famously R.D. The image of him hoisted aloft in the straitjacket was used heavily in the film’s promotion, and not only symbolises psychiatry and society’s view of him as ‘mad’, but also evokes the spectacle and liberatory potential of Houdini’s escapes. This descent (or escape) into ‘madness’ sees Morgan admitted to a mental hospital in the film’s finale. Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, 1966.

Houdini straitjacket escape