Moseley and Balsall Heath Institute, Birmingham

‘The People’s Theatre movement in Birmingham is very young, and the performance of two Shaw plays at the Moseley and Balsall Heath Institute, last night, was not without the shortcomings that are only to be expected from a company much more possessed of enthusiasm than experience. The enthusiasm, if they keen it, will take them far: they have at hand a sufficient amount of natural aptitude to warrant hopeful expectations for the future. That there is room for such a movement, can scarcely be denied, and in attempting to awaken fresh interest in the drama in a hitherto little-explored way, this company of players deserve encouragement. Doubtless they will soon learn not to repeat last night’s too obvious error of putting on a curtain-raiser which had been far from adequately rehearsed. It was “Augustus Does His Bit,” a delightful fragment of Shavian wit and a fitting prelude to “The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet,” a play in which Shaw, for once, is frankly insistent upon melodrama. Upon the whole, it was enjoyably done. It makes rather big demands upon a large cast, but this only served to indicate that this company should do well and go a long way toward fulfilling their ideals, provided that much bard work is accompanied with readiness to profit from early experience’. Birmingham Daily Gazette, Friday 27 March 1925.

Presented by the member of Camp Hill Old Edwardians Dramatic Society for one night.