Oxford

Oxford, home of England's oldest university, probably had performances of liturgical drama in medieval times, but the first play to be recorded (at Magdalen) dates from about 1490. In the 1540s undergraduates at several colleges acted plays in Latin. There seems to have been less acting at Oxford than at Cambridge, but in 1566 Queen Elizabeth I was present at a production in Christ Church of Edwardes's Palaemon and Arcyte, based on Chaucer's The Knight's Tale. In 1567 a comedy was produced at Merton with the intriguing title Wylie Beguylie. Unfortunately, as with most other plays of the time, the manuscript is lost, as happened also with the texts of the plays given before Charles I in 1636. Up to this point drama in Oxford seems to have been left entirely to amateurs, and professional visits seem to have been discouraged, though Strange's Men played in an innyard in the city in 1590–1, the King's Men were seen in a tennis-court in 1680, and a professional company under Betterton was in Oxford in 1703. In the 18th century there was little beyond private theatricals, and some quasi-official performances at Commemoration.

The foundation of the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) in 1885 by a group of undergraduates which included Arthur Bourchier, later an important actor-manager, and Cosmo Gordon Lang, a future Archbishop of Canterbury, and a cousin of the actor-manager Matheson Lang, again made acting an acceptable extra-curricular activity in the university. The first production, given in the Town Hall, was Henry IV, Part One, in which Bourchier played Hotspur and Lang spoke a Prologue. Most of the plays produced in future years were comedies by Shakespeare, given in a college garden or hall.

During the First World War the OUDS was disbanded, but it started up again in 1919 with a production of Hardy's epic poem The Dynasts. The society then pursued its former policy of indoor and outdoor productions. One important venture was the staging in 1931 of Flecker's Hassan, with Peggy Ashcroft as Pervaneh, since the company still refused to admit women members. Meanwhile a new society known as Friends of the OUDS had been formed by Nevill Coghill (1899–1980), later Merton Professor of English Literature, which filled the gap with 12 productions between 1940 and 1946, the last being Ibsen's The Pretenders. The society was then re-formed, and women were admitted to full membership; but in 1950 it was forced by financial troubles to give up its premises, though it now has a club room and office in the Burton—Taylor Theatre (see OXFORD PLAYHOUSE). Its productions continue to reach a high standard. In 1936 Coghill had also founded a new society, the Oxford Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), which unlike OUDS was designed to leave everything connected with the production in the hands of undergraduates. It also chooses plays not within the scope of the older society, particularly those illustrating the current experimental trends in the theatre, even becoming involved in community theatre. The university also has a Visiting Chair of Drama. The Apollo Theatre, formerly the New, which opened in 1934, is not a prime venue for touring companies, except for opera.