All-England Theatre Festival

The history of the All-England Theatre Festival dates back to 1919 when the British Drama League was formed. The public inauguration of the League took place at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket on 22 June and was said by the first director of the League, Mr. Geoffrey Whitworth, that "Drama was par excellence the art of the people, and the Theatre everyone's business". There was a wide range of individuals on the first committee. The Drama League was in essence an association composed of individual co-operators in amateur drama and affiliated amateur dramatic groups. It was very active in the pursuit of the creation of a National Theatre. One of the main planks of the Drama League was its Education platform. This evolved into a strong commitment to new writing and eventually the establishment of competitive Festivals. It provided a central organisation for amateur societies throughout England (despite the name "British"), it conducted drama schools and ran a drama library.[2] By June 1923 there were 360 affiliated societies which included amateur and professional bodies. In 1926 professionals were expressing concern that the rapid growth of amateur drama was likely to cause problems with too many people trying to enter an already overcrowded profession. A Council Meeting was held to discuss this and in 1927 it was noted that the League's monthly journal 'Drama' was selling 3000 copies. This interest had started a British 'Festival of Community Drama' which was used to find an entry for the American New York Little Theatre Tournament. Other aspects of the League's work included the making of a substantial contribution to the Stratford-on-Avon Memorial Theatre, visits to Europe to help establish Festivals and the organisation of summer schools.[3]

It has been argued that 1926 is the most important date in the history of the revival of the one-act play.[4] The reason being that it was in 1926 that the British Drama League held its first experimental festival of one-act plays. In its first year seven societies took part in the competition, or festival as it was known. The next year the number was up to one hundred and fifty. In 1930 the number was 400, in 1932 600, and by 1936 seven hundred and forty seven groups had entered.[2] Very quickly a system of rounds had therefore been developed to cope with the numbers of entries. There was a first round at a regional level from which adjudicators would send their selections forward to a second round. Another set of adjudicators would then send a selection forward to a final round held annually in London.[2] This final round, started in 1927, included Scottish entries, thus there was no English Final as such.

In 1927, the Scottish counterpart of the British Drama League, the Scottish Community Drama Association, had set up their own annual knockout festival which experienced similar success and by 1937 was attracting around three hundred and fifty entries.[2] The Scottish festival had its own Scottish final, which went on to the London final to compete with English teams.

In 1938 the final of the National Festival was held outside London for the first time following the invitation of the Scottish Community Drama Association. The war brought a significant reduction in the League's membership but activities continued as best they could throughout. The emphasis changed somewhat to encourage Youth clubs and military units for educational purposes.

After the Second World War the regions started to organise their own Festivals and the first England only Final was held in 1947. Until 1957 the organisation of subsequent annual Finals continued to be run by the British Drama League and eventually became the remit of the All England Theatre Festival. After 1957 the role of the British Drama League gradually faded away to be replaced by a mixture of support groups. The British Drama League became the British Theatre Association, with effect from 1 November 1972[5] and for financial reasons was dissolved in 1990. Its collections of play scripts (presented by Annie Horniman) are held in the most part by the Theatre Museum in London[6] with the remaining part of the collection held by the Drama Association of Wales.