26/11/2025
My archive project at the moment is sorting out a large pile of loose miscellaneous press cuttings. This one caught my eye:-
Birmingham Post. 28th. February 1959
Keith Gascoigne
Writes on
MIDLAND ENTERTAINMENTS
Little Theatres Need More New Plays
“IT is disappointing," says the annual report of the Little Theatre JL Guild of Great Britain, "that out of a total of 190 major productions by member-theatres this year, only five are of completely new plays. It is, however, gratifying to note that each of the new plays has been written by a member of the producing theatre. There have also been several new translations off oreign plays and at least two 'British' premieres. Although good new plays are rare, the Guild's policy is to encourage authors of promise and any script sent in will receive sympathetic consideration.
"It is worth remembering that any one will put on a good new play (provided he recognises it!) but it might be considered an important function of the little theatres to put on a promising new play."
Two of these new plays were presented by Midland little theatres, Hall Green and the Loft at Leamington. Most of the member-theatres report larger audiences (Highbury, at Sutton Coldfield, remarks on the box-office success of "two obscure plays, Waiting for Godot and Dr. Faustus, that might be thought to be difficult from the point of view of audience reception").
Indeed, the growing strength of the Guild (it now has 22 member theatres) is a heartening sign of increased interest in what one might call, without being pretentious, intelligent theatre.
Here in the Midlands, for example, Highbury tonight finishes its run of an Ibsen play while the Crescent opens a fortnight of Hannah Cowley's 18th-century comedy The Belle's Stratagem. It is typical of little theatre enthusiasm that having, in most cases, buillt or adapted their own buildings the members continue to add to facilities (the Crescent has just built a revolving stage; Leamington's Loft Theatre has raised almost £10.000 to rebuild its theatre, destroyed by fire within 13 months; Hall Green recently added a foyer to its building).
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Next week the enthusiastic Talisman at Kenilworth adds The Crucible to its tally of Arthur Miller plays, while the Loft is reopening with Thornton Wilder's comedy The Matchmaker.
Standards in the Guild are kept high; the report notes that though there have been many enquiries about membership, and one application is pending, only one theatre has been admitted. I was able last year to sit in on one of the discussions when applications were being considered; the searching into artistic standards was evidence of the jealous regard the Guild has for its own reputation.
It does much more for its members – thrice-yearly conferences, the spreading of information, especially on such thorny points as rating assessment or the difficulty of obtaining performing rights of certain plays of quality through the attitude of agents or managements, and the circularising of new plays are some of the more important services.
Experimental work such as the performance of new plays – or "promising" plays – is just the kind of thing that amateurs should be doing, in my opinion.
Especially in a city like Birmingham, whose professional theatre amenities have been reduced by the activities of commercial interests, there is need for constant exploration of new theatrical fields.
It is slow work, inevitably. I remember a remark of Benn Levy to the effect that one cannot have an avant-garde composed of dramatists only; there must be someone on the receiving end.
Amateurs in general, and little theatres in particular, are admirably suited to tackle such a job as part (and it must only be part, obviously) of their work.
Most of them, it is evident from this report, as well as from our own experience in the Midlands, are well aware of it (I like the remark by Newcastle's People's Theatre that "avant-garde plays such as Waiting for Godot attracted large and suitably bewildered audiences," for a bewildered audience in a little theatre is at least a thinking audience, even if the same is not necessarily true for the professional theatre). Long may they stay that way.
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I wonder what they would think of todays situation?
