ABSTRACT
Between the war, Shakespeare proved something of a battleground between old-fashioned theatre, exemplified by Henry Irving and Beerbohm Tree, and a more modern approach pioneered by William Poel and Granville Barker. The struggle was fought mostly at the Old Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, since Shakespeare made only sporadic appearances in the commercial theatre. Bridges-Adams wanted the new theatre to claim a place on the international scene, with the best actors, directors and designers given more space and time, but Archibald Flower was tiring of Bridges-Adams’s ambitions. He saw nothing wrong with the old way of doing things, despite Stratford by now being probably the richest theatre in the country. The 1930s, despite the problems which beset even the best companies, offered a model for working relations which enabled some of the best work in the history of British theatre.
