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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2025
One of the world's most enduring and successful cultural diplomacy organizations, the British Council (BC) has played a prominent role in promoting and exporting British theatre, literature, and language across the globe since its founding in 1934. A key component of the BC's self-proclaimed remit of “forging links between Britain and other countries through cultural exchange,” the organization's Drama Division has over its lifetime worked to sponsor and facilitate the overseas touring of a significant number of British theatrical enterprises, exporting both large-scale national company productions with substantial casts and a repertoire of shows, as well as individual actors, directors, and academics embarking on speaking tours. From the stage, renowned actors and star names such as Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Vivien Leigh, Peggy Ashcroft, and John Gielgud were routinely chosen by the BC to appear in series of “theatrical manifestations,” serving in dual capacities both as actors in productions and ambassadors for a nation—the word “manifestation” being the BC's own preferred terminology used to refer to the export of a cultural event during the middle of the past century. Yet unlike comparable accounts of the relationship between the Arts Council and theatre, we possess no systematic study of the BC's involvement in this field, meaning that fundamental questions about the nature, range, and impact of the BC's cultural activity remain unanswered. Indeed, until comparatively recently, the history of the BC has failed to generate much scholarly interest at all, but the nature of its imbrication within British theatrical culture in particular remains severely occluded.
1 “The Betrayal of the British Council,” Burlington Magazine 149.1248 (2007): 147.
2 For an account of the early history of the Arts Council and its methods of distributing funds, see Harris, John S., Government Patronage of the Arts in Great Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar. For an overall view of the relationship between the Arts Council and the allocation of funding throughout its history, see Turnbull, Olivia, Bringing Down the House: The Crisis in Britain's Regional Theatres (Bristol: Intellect, 2008), esp. 47–66Google Scholar. John Bull points out that the Arts Council archive was made available for consultation only in the early twenty-first century, having been presented to the V&A in 1996, so all accounts of its activities predating this were by ex-employees whose only sources were its published annual accounts. For an account of this, see Bull, John, British Theatre Companies: 1965–1979 (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017), 56–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For accounts of the relationship between the Arts Council and specific theatre companies, individuals, and movements, see Craig, Sandy, “The Bitten Hand: Patronage and Alternative Theatre,” in Dreams and Deconstructions: Alternative Theatre in Britain, ed. Craig, Sandy (Ambergate, Derbyshire, UK: Amber Lane, 1980), 177–86Google Scholar; Holdsworth, Nadine, “‘They'd have pissed on my grave’: The Arts Council and Theatre Workshop,” New Theatre Quarterly 15.1 (1999): 3–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Storey, Taryn, “Devine Intervention: Collaboration and Conspiracy in the History of the Royal Court,” New Theatre Quarterly 28.4 (2012): 363–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Alice Byrne notes a lack of interest in the history of the British Council in her article on the BC's interwar policy concerning overseas students. See Byrne, Alice, “A ‘Sound Investment’? British Cultural Diplomacy and Overseas Students: The British Council's Students Committee, 1935–1939,” Contemporary European History 30.2 (2021): 265–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a history of the BC up to 1984, see Donaldson, Frances, The British Council: The First Fifty Years (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984)Google Scholar.
4 See Harvie, Jen, “Nationalizing the ‘Creative Industries,’” Contemporary Theatre Review 13.1 (2003): 15–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cook, Brian E. G., “Shocking the System: The Arts Council, the British Council, and the Paradox of Cherub Theatre Company,” Theatre History Studies 35 (2016): 73–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Ritter, Caroline, Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), 45Google Scholar.
6 Sharon Memis, “The Impact of International Cultural Engagement: The British Council's Approach to Evaluation,” Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 39.4 (2009): 292–7, at 293.
7 Philip M. Taylor, “Cultural Diplomacy and the British Council: 1939–1939,” British Journal of International Studies 4.3 (1978): 244–65, at 248.
8 Ibid., 246. In the 1880s French propaganda had been operated through the Service des Oeuvres des Françaises á l’Étranger, which operated through the Alliance Française. The Germans had also established the Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland. British entry into the field of cultural diplomacy is seen as late compared to its competitors.
9 See Byrne, “‘Sound Investment’?” 269 and Taylor, “Cultural Diplomacy,” 257.
10 Byrne, “‘Sound Investment’?” 265.
11 Taylor, “Cultural Diplomacy,” 244.
12 Anthony Haigh, Cultural Diplomacy in Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1974), 36.
13 “Betrayal of the British Council,” 147.
14 The word “Mission” is capitalized in all BC correspondence and memoranda throughout the Cold War period, functioning as a shorthand for activities undertaken against communism.
15 Activities in Iron Curtain Countries, The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), BW 1/328. The BC had reopened their offices in Prague and Budapest in 1945, Warsaw in 1946, and Sofia in 1947 but were expelled from all of them by 1950. Often local BC office administrators remaining in those countries following the expulsion of British staff were accused of espionage. In March 1963 the British government set up a special “East Europe Committee” jointly backed by the FO's Cultural Relations Department and the BC to improve relations with the Soviet satellite states.
16 John Beaglehole, “Anglo–Soviet Relations: A British Review,” New Zealand International Review 12.3 (1987): 22–6, at 25.
17 Letter from Paul Grey, British Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, 15 September 1959, TNA BW 1/328.
18 Zoltán Imre, “Theatre, Propaganda and the Cold War: Peter Brook's Midsummer Night's Dream in Eastern Europe (1972),” in Theatre, Globalization and the Cold War, ed. Christopher B. Balme and Berenika Szymanski-Düll (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 107–29, at 109.
19 Ibid., 108.
20 Memorandum, TNA BW 1/606.
21 Ibid.
22 Letter from T. F. Brenchley, British Ambassador to Poland, December 1972, TNA BW 1/606.
23 As Jennifer Kumiega makes clear, up until that point, Polish authorities had maintained an equivocal attitude toward Grotowski's work and methods. See Jennifer Kumiega, The Theatre of Grotowski (London: Methuen, 1987), 39–53.
24 See Andrew Sinclair, Arts and Cultures: The History of the 50 Years of the Arts Council of Great Britain (London: Sinclair–Stevenson, 1995), 51. For an account of the relationship between the ESC and the ACGB, see Storey, “Devine Intervention,” 368–75.
25 For a full account of this, see Turnbull, Bringing Down the House, 24–34.
26 To take one example, the BC engineered the visit of the Shakespeare Festival Company to Paris for performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice with Ralph Richardson, with the BC delegate in Paris castigating the former as “less than mediocre.” TNA BW 1/440.
27 Peter Brook, The Empty Space (London: McKibbon & Kee, 1968), 55.
28 Susan Bennett, Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception, 2d ed. (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1997), 96.
29 Charles Marowitz, “The Marat/Sade, A Review,” in Peter Brook: A Theatrical Casebook, ed. David Williams (London: Methuen, 1988), 70–2, at 71.
30 Peter Brook, The Shifting Point: 40 Years of Theatrical Exploration, 1946–1987 (London: Methuen, 1987), 48.
31 David Roberts, “Marat/Sade, or the Birth of Postmodernism from the Spirit of the Avantgarde,” New German Critique 38 (1986): 112–30, at 117.
32 Anne Beggs, “Revisiting Marat/Sade: Philosophy in the Asylum, Asylum in the Theatre,” Modern Drama 56.1 (2013): 60–79, at 60.
33 Letter from Patrick Donnell, Royal Shakespeare Company, to Jane Edgeworth, 1 September 1964, TNA BW 31/52.
34 Letter from Jane Edgeworth to Patrick Donnell, 17 September 1964, TNA BW 31/52.
35 Letter from Jane Edgeworth to Peter Brook, 25 September 1964, TNA BW 31/52.
36 Letter from Patrick Donnell to André Guerbilsky, 20 October 1964, TNA BW 31/52.
37 Internal BC memo from Jane Edgeworth quoting Charles de Winton, 28 October 1964, TNA BW 31/52.
38 Erika Fischer-Lichte, “European Festivals,” in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 87–100, at 92.
39 Letter from Maurice Edelman to Paul Sinker, 2 July 1965, MSS 125/2/5/2, Maurice Edelman Archive, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick (hereafter Edelman Archive). Benjamin Britten's War Requiem (1962) was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral after the original structure had been destroyed by bombing. It is tempting to speculate that Edelman was moved to make the suggestion in order to produce some kind of symbolic link between his parliamentary constituency as MP and Notre-Dame itself, although there is no direct evidence of this.
40 Letter from R. A. H. Duke (deputy controller, Books, Art and Science Division, BC) to Charles de Winton, 10 September 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
41 Letter from Paul Sinker to Maurice Edelman, 15 November 1965, MSS 125/2/5/2, Edelman Archive.
42 Letter from Maurice Edelman to Lady Reilly, 23 November 1965, MSS 125/2/5/2, Edelman Archive.
43 Fischer-Lichte, “European Festivals,” 92.
44 Letter from Charles de Winton to R. A. H. Duke, 18 September 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
45 For an extensive eyewitness account of the National Theatre tour to the USSR, see Virginia Fairweather, Cry God for Larry: An Intimate Memoir of Sir Laurence Olivier (London: Calder & Boyars, 1969), 115–50.
46 National Theatre Tour to USSR, West Berlin, and Italy, 6 August 1965, TNA BW 1/442.
47 Letter from George Hume to Enid McLeod (BC Officer Paris), 6 April 1957, TNA BW 1/436. Emphasis in original.
48 Memorandum from R. P. H. Davis, Director of Music and Drama, 20 October 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
49 Letter from Charles de Winton to R. A. H. Duke, 27 October 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
50 Memorandum from R. A. H. Duke to R. P. H. Davis, 29 October 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
51 Letter from Charles de Winton to R. A. H. Duke, 24 November 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
52 Letter from Patrick Donnell to Jane Edgeworth, 6 December 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
53 Memorandum to Paul Sinker, transcript of telephone call from Maurice Edelman, 10 December 1965, MSS 125/2/5/2, Edelman Archive. The so-called Moors Murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965 and included the killing of five children. The crimes were the subject of extensive and worldwide media coverage, with much interest focusing on Brady's possession of a paperback of de Sade's Justine, newly available at the time since the obscenity trial over D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1960). The trial took place on 19 April 1966.
54 Memorandum from E. N. Gummer, Deputy Controller, Books, Art and Science, BC to H. F. Oxbury, Deputy Director-General, 10 December 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
55 Draft letter to Sir Patrick Reilly, 14 December 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
56 Paul Sinker to Sir Patrick Reilly, 15 December 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
57 Letter from Charles de Winton, 21 September 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
58 Memorandum from R. P. H. Davis, 21 December 1965, TNA BW 31/52. It is not clear whom de Winton was quoting in point (d), nor to what he was referring.
59 Sam White, “The Council Chooses Sade,” Evening Standard, 17 December 1965.
60 Robert Pitman, Daily Express, 22 December 1965.
61 Letter from Patrick Reilly to Paul Sinker, 22 December 1965, TNA BW 31/52.
62 Memorandum from R. A. H Duke, 15 January 1966, TNA BW 31/52.
63 Draft Confidential for Executive Committee, 1 February 1966, TNA BW 31/52.
64 Lord Harwood, letter to Executive Committee, 1 February 1966, TNA BW 31/52.
65 Minutes of Executive Committee, 1 February 1966, TNA BW 31/52.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
68 “Marat-Sade Draft Statement,” E. N. Gummer, 2 February 1966, TNA BW 31/2.
69 Memorandum from R. A. H. Duke, 8 February 1966, TNA BW 2/695.
70 “Row in British Council over Sade Play,” Daily Telegraph, 9 February 1966.
71 “Stuffy Decision,” Evening Standard, 9 February 1966.
72 “Londoner's Diary,” Evening Standard, 10 February 1966.
73 “Guarantor for Shakespeare Company's Trip,” Guardian, 10 February 1966.
74 “Shakespeare Group Tied to ‘Dirty’ Plays,” New York Times, 26 August 1964, 33.
75 Kenneth Tynan, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975), 191.
76 Maurice Edelman, “Why I, personally, am against spending your money on de Sade,” Daily Express, 10 February 1966.
77 Ted Willis, “How They Must Be Laughing in Paris!” Daily Express, 11 February 1966.
78 Osbert Lancaster, “Pocket Cartoon,” Daily Express, 12 February 1966.
79 Memorandum from E. N. Gummer to Lord Bridges, 10 February 1966, TNA BW 2/695.
80 Ibid.
81 Memorandum from Lord Bridges to H. F. Oxbury, 3 March 1966, TNA BW 2/695.
82 Memorandum from H. F. Oxbury to R. A. H. Duke, 24 February 1966, TNA 2/695.
83 Letter from Maurice Edelman to George Wall, 9 March 1966, MSS 125/2/5/2, Edelman Archive.
84 Letter from Lord Bridges to Maurice Edelman, 18 March 1966, TNA BW2/695.
85 Letter from Maurice Edelman to Lord Bridges, 24 March 1966, TNA BW2/695.
86 “Notes for the Meeting of Lord Bridges with Members of the Drama Advisory Committee,” 23 May 1966, TNA BW2/695.
87 Letter from Lord Bridges to Norman Marshall, 8 June 1966, TNA BW 2/695.
88 Letter from Norman Marshall to Lord Bridges, 12 June 1966, TNA BW2/695.
89 Letter from Maurice Edelman to Paul Sinker, 10 October 1966, MSS 125/2/5/2, Edelman Archive. Edelman effectively resigned all his roles within the BC, including on the DAC.
90 Ritter, Imperial Encore, 25.
91 Ibid., 27; 26.
92 Margaret Croydon, Conversations with Peter Brook: 1979–2000 (London: Faber & Faber, 2003), xiii.