Inter-War Village Drama :

AHRB Research Grant awarded July 2004
Principal Investigator: Professor Mick Wallis

The principal aim of this project, due for completion in June 2008, is to conduct a survey of English sources relating to village drama in the 'long' interwar period, 1880-1945, centring on 1919-39. The material includes institutional and private archives, printed and photographic records, playtexts and oral testimony, many of which are hitherto unexplored. The broad objective is to deepen and extend what are presently only superficial understandings and partial knowledge of the institutions, practices and discourses bearing on village drama, and to develop some key practitioner biographies. Structurally, the objective is to develop both an holistic overview and a cognitive map of differences, and some key micro-histories that inform that dialectic. Dr Philip Kiszely has been appointed Research Fellow one year full-time; together we shall cover approximately ten counties. A minimum of two research papers are planned within the funding period and more are expected to follow. The research will inform the planned book with Dr Caitlin Adams, Drama in the Villages.

Still from experimental film associated with the live production made by pioneer adult educationalists F.G. and D. Irene Thomas

Peer Gynt at Liverton, Devon, 1932
Photograph by Laurie Black, in F.G. Thomas, The New Learning, 1932, f.p. 57.
Reproduced by kind permission of the WEA