ONE act plays are in the spotlight again this year as the All-England Theatre Festival comes to town.

Amateur theatre companies from across the region are invited to the Victoria Hall stage at Grange-over-Sands for the festival's preliminary round on Friday and Saturday, March 7/8.

Interested groups should contact the secretary of Cumbria Drama Festival Committee, Edna Jeffers, on 01539-734375. The closing date for entries is the end of January.

For the record, the AEFT started life as the British Drama League in 1919 under the guidance of Geoffrey Whitworth driven by his pursuit of making "theatre everybody's business".

Its formative years focused on playwriting commemorated by the Geoffrey Whitworth Trophy, awarded annually for the best original one-act script.

In 1926 an offer to take part in the New York Little Theatre Tournament resulted in a selection procedure to decide which am-dram outfit should fly the flag in the US. This led to the setting up of an elimination competition in 1927.

Later, the British Drama League became the British Drama Association, changing again into today's AETF representing amateur theatre in all its forms.

January 16, 2003 09:30