Media Culture for a Modern Nation? Theatre, Cinema and Radio in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland a study © Adrienne Clare Scullion Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD to the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Glasgow. March 1992 ProQuest Number: 13818929 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13818929 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Frontispiece The Clachan, Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry, 1911. (T R Annan and Sons Ltd., Glasgow) GLASGOW UNIVERSITY library Abstract This study investigates the cultural scene in Scotland in the period from the 1880s to 1939. The project focuses on the effects in Scotland of the development of the new media of film and wireless. It addresses question as to what changes, over the first decades of the twentieth century, these two revolutionary forms of public technology effect on the established entertainment system in Scotland and on the Scottish experience of culture. The study presents a broad view of the cultural scene in Scotland over the period: discusses contemporary politics; considers established and new theatrical activity; examines the development of a film culture; and investigates the expansion of broadcast wireless and its influence on indigenous theatre. The study argues that it was the interaction of these media which created a modem culture in Scotland. The examination of the Scottish scene acts as a distillation of general trends in the cultural life of Britain as a whole: the expansion of the industries of popular culture; the rise of repertory theatre; the influential role of amateur performers and the contribution of the Left as cultural sponsor and producer are all part of the Scottish experience. The underlying aesthetic project of the period is identified as one which the state increasingly calls its own: that is a cultural strategy which perceives itself to be educative and improving. The repertory theatres are part of this, as are the Film Societies and the institutions of the British Film Institute and the Scottish Film Council. In developing an ethos of public service, the paradigmatic cultural institution of the period is, however, the BBC, whose role are regional as well as national broadcaster is acknowledged in this thesis. The key shift that this study highlights, however, is the active participation of the state in some of the nation’s major artistic and cultural projects. The effects of the perceived cultural mission of artists, producers and state, and the developments of industry, technology and the arts generally are drawn together and discussed in the representative celebration of the 1938 Empire Exhibition: a distinctive and indeed final moment for the aesthetic, cultural and social projects of the preceding period and one in which the state participates as both exhibitor and arts sponsor. Of parallel importance is the active role increasingly adopted by the audience. Political debate combines with new theatre activity and the development of new and accessible technologies to create an environment in which the audience emerges as a powerful player in the media system. At the end of the period the social importance of the arts has been acknowledged and the culture industries are poised to be legitimised by state sponsorship and subsidy. 3 Media Culture for a Modern Nation? Theatre, Cinema and Radio in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland * Contents List of Illustrations 4 o n e Introduction 5 Tt is a significant moment... when culture ceases to be the privilege and prerogative of the cultivation ofprivate individuals and begins to be a matter for which the state takes public responsibility.* Part one: Contexts tw o The Scottish Scene: Political Context 10 ‘The nineteenth century had given birth to two great movements which challenged the old order: socialism and nationalism.* t h r e e The Scottish Scene: Cultural Contexts 51 ‘ . culture is, or ought to be, the study and pursuit of perfection .. ..* Part two: Institutions f o u r The Theatre System 96 *... [a] theater of complex character and multiple traditions.. fiv e Cinema: Introduction and Use 158 ‘There is, unquestionably, great possibilities in this interesting, scientific toy six Broadcast Radio in Scotland 216 ‘The rise of cinema is spectacular enough, but is a pedestrian story compared with the rise of radio.* Part three: Conclusions s e v e n The 1938 Empire Exhibition 280 ‘Scotland at home to the World.* e ig h t Conclusion 325 ‘To be modem is to live a life of paradox and contradiction.* Bibliography 332 4 Media Culture for a Modern Nation? Theatre, Cinema and Radio in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland * Illustrations Frontispiece The Clachan — Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry, 1911 * Plate Caricature of Maxton, Buchanan, Wheadey and Stephen 39 ii ‘Practising the New Step* — Britannia Theatre 120 ■ • • HI Alfred Wareing 131 iv Glasgow Workers’ Theatre Group-- On Guard for Spain 147 V Green’s booth cinema — cl896 167 vi Wilson’s Grand Electric Travelling Show — 1908 169 vii E H Bostock 176 viii Poster for Bostock and Wombwell’s Menagerie -- cl910 179 ix Local topical featuring the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Players 189 X The new Coliseum music hall 194 xi The original 5SC staff 237 9 9 XU J M A Cameron in the original 5SC control room 239 • • • Xlll R E Jeffrey 246 xiv The Scottish National Players — at the BBC 257 XV Cecil Lewis at the dramatic control panel 272 xvi The Clachan -- Empire Exhibition, Scotland, 1938 290 xvii Scenes from the Exhibition 297 xviii Scenes from the Exhibition 306 xix The Tower of Empire - designed by Thomas Tait 319 ♦ 5 Introduction It is a significant moment... when culture ceases to be the privilege and prerogative of the cultivation ofprivate individuals and begins to be a matter for which the state takes public responsibility.1 This thesis deals with just such a moment in the political and social experience of British and, more particularly, Scottish culture -- and indeed resets the ‘moment* as an ongoing process. The twentieth century sees the greater centralisation of the industries of the entertainment environment and the shift from an unregulated, market-based economy towards an arts environment that encompasses a sector less immediately dependent on financial profit and one which increasingly comes under the influence of the state. The paradigmatic cultural institution of the interwar period is the BBC which within five years of its founding evolved as a public corporation and from that point developed as a core producer at the very centre of the hegemonic practices of the contemporary state. Film had begun as a fully independent provider of entertainment yet by the outbreak of war in 1939, the cultural worth of this medium of mass entertainment had been ratified by the establishment of the the state-sponsored agencies of the British Film Institute and the Scottish Film Council. Throughout the period, development in the production context of theatre also laid the foundations for the institutional developments to be made under the auspices of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) from 1941. As Stuart Hall points out in his essay ‘Popular Culture and the State,’ ‘The twentieth century, it is often argued, has seen the growth of the all- encompassing state, from the cradle to the grave.’2 The influence is equally to be charted in the cultural life of the nation. The current project will focus on the effects in Scotland of the development of the new media of film and wireless and will question what changes these two revolutionary forms of ‘public technology*3 were to effect on the established entertainment system in Scotland and on the Scottish experience of culture over the first decades of the twentieth century. The study will present a broad view of the cultural scene in Scotland over the period. It will consider new and established theatrical activity, the mainstream theatre industry, popular entertainments and theatrical experiments; it will discuss the politics of the period, the role of nationalism and socialism, important backdrops to Scotland’s Stuart Hall, ‘Popular Culture and the State,’ Popular Culture and Social Relations eds Tony Bennett, Colin Mercer, and Janet Woollacott (Milton Keynes: Open U P, 1986): 27. 2Hall: 26. 3Raymond Williams,Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974. Glasgow: Fontana, 1979): 32-33. 6 cultural life. This will be balanced against the pre-existing experience of the theatres and the music halls of the late-Victorian period which maintained a mutually complimentary system of entertainment industries. (The intervention of film in the form of its most influential social use, cinema, altered this cultural model. Over the first years of the new century a renewed system, encompassing cinema, reasserted itself but then the introduction of domestic radio changed the experience of entertainment and the very nature of ‘public technology* through its essential domesticity.) The underlying aesthetic project of the period will be isolated as one which the state increasingly calls its own, that is a cultural strategy which perceives itself to be educative and improving. The effects of it and the developments of industry, technology and arts activity in general will be drawn together and discussed in the representative celebration of the 1938 Empire Exhibition — a distinctive, and indeed final, moment for the aesthetic, cultural and social projects of the preceding period and one in which the state participated as both exhibitor and arts sponsor.