Theatre in the Chocolate Factory
Theatre in the Chocolate Factory
Providing a new way of thinking about industrialism and its history through the lens of one of Britain's most recognisable heritage brands, Catherine Hindson explores the creativity that was at the heart of Cadbury's operation in the early twentieth century. Guided by Quaker Capitalism, employees at Bournville took part in recreational and educational activities, enabling imagination to flourish. Amidst this pattern of work and play arose the vibrant phenomenon that was factory theatre, with performances and productions involving tens of thousands of employees as performers and spectators. Home-grown Bournville casts and audiences were supplemented by performers, civic leaders, playwrights, academics, town planners, and celebrities, interweaving industrialists with the city's theatrical and visual arts as well as national entertainment cultures. This interdisciplinary study uncovers the stories of Bournville's theatre and the employees who made it, considering ground-breaking approaches to mental and physical health and education.
- Tells a new story about a leading heritage brand, opening up a new way of thinking about British Industrialism and its history
- Blurs boundaries between amateur and professional theatre, exploring the multiple roles played at the factory by employees as performers, educators, and cultural leaders, and opens up new ways of thinking about production outside of typical theatrical venues
- Intersects with the history of Birmingham Repertory Theatre
- Tells a history of creative working practices beginning long before their popularisation by brands like Google and Lego, contextualising and grounding current preoccupations with work-life balance, well-being, and the role of creativity
Reviews & endorsements
'Catherine Hindson draws striking parallels in her conclusion between the corporate ethos cultivated at Cadbury's and that nowadays espoused at Legoland, but what is most striking, reading her study, is how thoroughly the world it explores has vanished, not always regrettably. As she points out, what happened at Bournville was not exactly amateur theatre: all these thousands of people were performing, albeit out of hours, in their roles as employees. Cadbury's clearly provided them with wonderful facilities for making theatre, but at the same time it conscripted their leisure in order to project a utopian, PR-friendly vision of happy, unalienated collective endeavour. This excellent, richly researched study shows how playing was really part of their work.' Michael Dobson, The Times Literary Supplement
'Hindson's excellent book rewards study and will inspire study. Its importance lies not only in documenting an untold aspect of theatre history; it also illuminates the present … Hindson's interdisciplinary monograph deserves wide readership … this book carries a significant message about theatre's fundamental importance in everyday life.' Helen Nicholson, Modern Drama
'[An] outstanding and purposefully detailed evacuation of the archive. Rich pickings indeed.' Trish Reid, Performance Research
'[A] captivating history of performance events housed within the Cadbury chocolate factory at Bournville.… in taking seriously the consequence of Cadbury Bournville's theatrical endeavors, Hindson reminds readers that deep readings of workers' cultural lives are vital to our historical understandings of working-class individuals and that with concerted effort we can reconstruct and rehabilitate these highly impactful performance initiatives to better and more fully understand working-class humanity.' Mary McAvoy, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History
Product details
April 2025Paperback
9781009271844
262 pages
229 × 152 × 14 mm
0.387kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Part I. Factory Theatre:
- 1. Staging Bournville's spirit: Cadbury's industrial performances
- 2. Theatre in the Bournville factory: performance at work
- Part II. Theatre in the Factory Garden
- 3. Marketing fresh air: outdoor performance at Bournville's factory in the garden
- 4. Serious play: John Drinkwater's masques at Bournville
- Part III. Theatre, Education, and Worker Wellbeing:
- 5. Keeping on the right lines: making theatre in Bournville's recreational societies
- 6. Dramatic methods of teaching: theatre and education at Bournville.
