Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1996 - 53

to retain their right to be entertained.

ROYAL COURT THEATRE, LIVERPOOL. SEPT. 30, 1924.
Sir John's company mored to Glasgow on September 22. and then to
Liverpool on September 29. and the boycott follO\red. ~Iembership and
support in the A.A. was dropping rapidl~: The A.A. continuously sought
in vain to meet with the Stage Guild to try and form some sort of agreement, but either tlle Stage Guild did not respond, or the meetings were
unproductive. The aim of the S!<1ge Guild seemed to be the dissolution
of the Actors Association. In the second typewritten letter of September
30 from Liverpool, Sir John comments:
What I have pointed out to the Actors' Association people is
this: that the actor can do his job without either sceneshifter or
musician, as they did in the old classical days in Greece and the
greatest days of Shakespearean drama. Therefore, why should
he affiliate himseU with either one body or the other? Let him
make his "appropriate" organisation as close a thing as ever he
likes. but he cannot get away from the fact that his work is an
Art. which he exercises solely and individually every time he
opens his mouth as a character in a play; as old Louis Calvert
used to say, every moment he is playing his part he is the star
of the evening and is exercising creative art. It's drivel to call
this an 'industry' or to link it up with other 'industries.'
I am not at all sure that the boycott won't peter out. The actors won't come out at the bidding of the A.A. , because they
know we can fill their places with members of the Stage Guild,
and so long as the actors won't come out the stage hands and
the orchestra naturally refuse. So here's he A.A. in a cleft stick.
There is nothing for them to do but to alter their constitution
and cut adrift from affiliation with other Trade Unions...

PRINCES THEATRE, MAt\lCHESTER, OCTOBER 6, 1924.
On October 6 the tour moved to the Princes Theatre in Manchester. The
third letter in tlle chronology is a handwritten note from a hotel in
Manchester. The first part of it is unrelated correspondence, but the
note ends with an interesting remark:
Boycott is petering out: Bourchier & his AA are now reduced
to snarls and vuIgarity-They are in a blind alley & they know
it: but it has been a pestering nuisance.
Ever yours,
Jack
The reference to Arnold Bourchier relates to an article in The
DaiG' Herald on October 2, which reported tllat Arnold Bourchier was
to meet witll Sir John Martin-HaIi'ey to see if tlle two actol'managers
could not come to some sOl1 of agreement. I! Five days later on October
, The Dai()' Herald reported tllat Bourchier supposedly had proof that
linked many of the members of tlle Stage Guild to the British Fascisti
(supporters of the Fascist movement) .15

LYCE 1\1 THEATRE, SHEFFIELD, OCTOBER 20, 1924.
On October 13 the tour traveled to Leeds; leaflets were distributed by
the A.A. warning citizens not to attend tlle perfonlUmce. 14 On October
20, the tour went to Sheffield, and the A.A. made an effort to keep up
the pressure. Sir John writes his fourth letter on stationery taken from
the Grand Hotel in Derbyshire, dated October 20. On page two of the
letter, Sir John writes:
Enquiring if the T.Us are active against us in Bristol- if so I

will let you know- for this your article would be most useful.
We are still persecuted by the A.A. but no further threats from
the T.Us, at least only one in Manchester & none in Leeds.
Ever yours,
Jack
One of the original leaflets. \rh.ich is nO\r in the Sh.ields Library collection warns the citizens of Sheffield to stay :l\ray (rom Sir John's company during the October 20 leg of the tour (Figure B). Also in the
collection is a leaflet endorsed by members of Sir John's company aIld
supporting the efforts of the Stage Guild. :\0 doubt there \rere other
leaflets; the Manchester Guardian referred to the conllict as "the battle
by manifesto." I; Despite these and other efforts by A.A. to gatller support and stym.ie attendaI1Ce, by early October the ne\rspapers were losing interest in the story. In a report (rom Billboard of October 11, the
boycott bel\reen tlle A.A. and tlle Stage Guild members had "slackened".16

LYCE !vi THEATRE, SHEFFIELD, OCTOBER 23, 1924.
The fifth letter, dated October 23, is a 1\1'0 page note, also on stationery
from the Grand Hotel. On page one, Sir John writes:
My Dear Bob,
I think I should 'let fly' with that article of yours- The A.A. are
still doing their best to vex me- They call it a free country!
Ever yours,
Jack
What do you think of enclosed?

The "enclosed" he may be referring to is most likely aIl0ther essay
in the collection; a carbon copy of 12 lyvewritten pages and entitled
Vo. 6 CONDITIONS - THEV AND~VOIV. Th.is \\'Ork \ras clearly written
by Sir John. The author writes about the period of his life when he was
an apprentice actor in the company of Sir Henry IIi·ing. The essay expounds the vil1ues of the small repertory COmpaI1Y in the follOWing excerpt:
These repertory companies sprang up everywhere and are doing much useful work, giving employment to a large number of
artists, who would otherwise be frozen out. Here the swarms of
youngsters who are yearly tumed out by the numerous dramatic schools find valuable employment in the rush and tumble
of plays, so hastily thrown on week by week that an actor I
heard at who had lost his lines one night, whispered to the
prompter, 'what is the word, old man?' And the prompter whispered back 'what is the play, old boy?'
Although changing economics made the aCIOI'manager all endangered species, men such as Sir John continued to express a desire to rellIrn to the way th.ings used to be, as opposed to the \ray they were in
1924.
The tour continued on \ovember 3rd at Cardiff, for whkh there
were no reports. However, on the November 10 leg of the tour at Birmingham, The Dai()' Herald reported that Sir John was again picketed
at the Theatre Royal, which corresponds \\~th the touring schedule. On
November 13, an article appeared in The Dai(JI Herald describing a letter addressed to Sir John (rom Frank Rose, the Labor M.P. (Member of
Parliament) for Aberdeen. Areprint of the article was discovered in the
Martin-Han'ey collection (Figure A). Rose, a member of the Amalgamated Engineers nion, came out in favor of Sir John and in protest of the
methods employed by the A.A. This action seriously underm.ined the
TD&T

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1996