North East Labour History Society. Annual General Meeting. Don Watson will be speaking about Amateur drama in the unemployed clubs of 1930s Britain

In 1932 one government response to mass unemployment was to fund the National Council for Voluntary Service to set up clubs and social centres for the unemployed. They offered members materials and instruction in boot-repair, carpentry, and allotment gardening, clothes making and alteration. Some like Rock House in Seaham and the Spennymoor Settlement also provided discussion-based adult education. Alongside this the British Drama League offered instructors in drama to develop amateur theatre groups among the members. Around half of the unemployed clubs on Tyneside had a drama group by 1938.

The talk will look at how impoverished communities were encouraged to make theatre through this scheme. It will take examples from around the country, and discuss issues around unemployed men and women developing their own plays, including plays about their own situations. These unemployed clubs were criticised both at the time and since as designed to distract the workless from their situation, and to diffuse discontent and unrest. This talk will argue that nevertheless some independent spaces were opened up for social commentary, participation and community theatre.

Don Watson is a NELHS committee member. His book, Theatre with a Purpose: Amateur Drama in Britain 1919-1949 was published by Methuen/Bloomsbury in 2024.