Cotswold Players

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Early History 

Before the First World War, in the summer of 1911, a Pageant of Progress was staged in Fromehall Park, Stroud, with 1,300 performers. The novelist Constance Smedley and her artist husband Maxwell Armfield were responsible for the dramatic work in the Pageant. According to one contemporary account, ‘there was only one rehearsal and the pageant went without a hitch’.

Afterwards Constance Smedley formed a Committee to consider how plays could be brought to the villages in the area. It first met on 6th October 1911 at the Armfields’ house in Rodborough where they decided to set up an organisation that was to be called Cotswold Players.

The Cotswold Players gave their first performance in Amberley where there was ‘general and free prompting’ according to the local paper. Among the audience was Geoffrey Whitworth who later formed the British Drama League.

The early plays they performed were simple situation comedies, often written in the Gloucestershire dialect and sometimes featuring local locations and legends. The Players toured their plays to the villages around Stroud, setting up stage at schools and village halls, often travelling considerable distances in all weathers, by bicycle and wagonette and even ‘Shanks’s pony’.

During World War I all the profits from productions were given to war charities - amounting to over a thousand pounds. Most of this effort came from the lady members; it was not until the end of the War when the men returned home that expansion occurred.

In the early 1920s, Theodore Hannam-Clarke and John Masefield (later Poet Laureate) were very active with the Players, the former first as an actor and later as producer; the latter as playwright, co-producer and later as President. In his book Drama in Gloucestershire, published in 1928, Hannam-Clarke refers to the Cotswold Players as ‘the most distinctive amateur organisation in the Country’. This is borne out by contemporary references in the national newspapers.

Theatrical history was made in 1922 when The Cotswold Players became the first actors to take a play to one of H. M. Prisons, when they presented Jerome K. Jerome's The Passing of the Third Floor Back at Gloucester Prison. This unique occasion has since been followed by a more recent visit to Leyhill Open Prison.

Early in 1925, Galsworthy's Silver Fox was presented by the Players in Bristol. This set up an echo for three decades later when, in 1959, the Player won the National Tape-Drama contest with a scene from this play.

During World War II the Players’ activities were necessarily limited. However, things returned almost to normal within a few months of the War's end.

The Post-War Period

From 1945 until the early part of 1957, The Cotswold Players presented a series of successful play seasons at the Church Institute, Stroud. So spectacular indeed was the resurgence that in 1954 the Players were invited to perform their production of Vanity Fair before an international audience at the British Drama League Annual Conference and Theatre Week at Malvern. The adaptation – from Thackeray’s famous novel – was by Constance Cox, well known for her adaptations of the classics for television. She came to Stroud and accompanied the Players to Malvern. The reception accorded to the play was most moving. Dorothy L. Sayers, who saw this production, stated that it ‘would have done justice to the professional stage’. The Cotswold Players have many times been successful in competitions and festivals both in Gloucestershire and further afield.

From 1946 onwards, The Cotswold Players were determined to obtain their own performance venue. An opportunity came when the Slade Hall, Parliament Street, was put up for sale. It was built in 1836 as a Primitive Methodist Chapel. A school room, now the Green Room, had been added in 1852. After the Methodists vacated the building it was bought by Stroud Urban District Council and was licensed for music and dancing. At some stage it was the HQ of The Stroud Boys’ Club, a fact that was reinforced when the Cotswold Players later discovered ball marks on the walls and ceiling.

The Cotswold Players bought the building in 1951 for £1500, with funds raised from the profits of earlier productions. It was not until 1954 that a Theatre Appeal Fund was launched to raise £4000 for the conversion of the building into a theatre, from plans drawn up by Edgar Leah of Gloucester. The success of the appeal was almost entirely due to the energy and devotion of the late Lionel Daniels, and to the many Friends of the Players who contributed handsomely to this fund and made it possible to put the work of conversion in hand.

An article in the local newspaper of the time stated that ‘when the chapel is converted into a theatre, there will be seats for 220 and car parking for 150 vehicles’. A later article in the same paper reduced the available car parking to 60 to 70.

The very first performance in the building took place in January 1953, when Bluebeard, a pantomime written and directed by Miss Trout, was performed within the original four walls of the chapel building on a temporary stage with no main curtain. The programme claimed that the Playhouse should ‘accommodate in comfort an audience of 250’.

Building and renovation work began in the spring of 1955 and was completed in 1957. The builders erected the present stage, whilst members set to and built most of the foyer, installed some three miles of electric cable, and redecorated and built new cloakrooms. The land adjoining the original chapel had at one time been a burial ground, although the graves were at least 60 years old and many as old as 100 years. Before building work could begin, the graves had to be removed and the remains re-interred at the Bisley Road cemetery; but The Cotswold Players decided that relatives of the deceased could, if they wished, have the remains interred in another place of their choice, and that Cotswold Players would pay up to £25 of the cost which was a significant sum of money at the time. It is not known what that generous offer cost the Society.

The final bill for the conversion was £4500, and the building was officially opened by Sir Barry Jackson in June 1957 with a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was directed by Grace Keene, and every member took part in some way or another.