Blackwell Reference Online

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April 1951 was unseasonably wet, so audiences stayed away from the Birmingham Rep's landmark production of 2 Henry VI. If the start of the first ever repertory run of the Henry VI plays was, as producer Sir Barry Jackson claimed, a major piece of theatre history, no one in Birmingham appeared to bother much about it; they preferred to stay dry, and to let Henry VI remain undiscovered. But Jackson was doubly unfortunate, because the rain also delayed the other big event of 1951, which might have created an audience for the staging of Shakespearean history: this was the start of the Festival of Britain. 1951 was, after all, Festival Year, when the government attempted to draw a line under a decade of war and austerity with a national celebration of British history and the British character. The main attraction was a large exhibition center erected on the South Bank; but the Festival also included a funfair in Battersea, special museum events across the country and “celestial omnibuses” decked out with exhibits from British history. Meanwhile, nearly every town and village in the country celebrated the Festival in their own way with local history pageants and shows. And the theatre also celebrated Festival year: Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh performed a double bill of Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra at St. James's Theatre; Glen Byam Shaw staged Henry V ... log in or subscribe to read full text