ABSTRACT
A few Welsh theatres in the first half of the twentieth century were known as fine touring venues, including Swansea’s Grand Theatre, opened in 1897 by the opera diva, Adelina Patti, the Theatre Royal, Cardiff, which staged its own pantomimes and prospered under the management of Robert Redford, and the New Theatre, also in Cardiff, which opened in 1906. The anti-theatre chapel culture of the Victorian period had not prevented small groups from dramatising Bible stories and showing them in neighbouring villages. Chapel was horrified, and in 1882 and 1883 many of those participating in drama were expelled. The amateur movement, however, continued to grow, whereas opposition slowly faded. The amateur movement reached its climax perhaps in George Fisher’s Theatr Fach which opened in a barn on Anglesey in 1955 to present a wide repertoire of English and Welsh-language plays.
