The Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Originally published to celebrate the Birmingham Rep's half century, this history is also a celebration of its founder, Barry Jackson, a wealthy idealist, passionately in love with the stage and skilled in its arts. It has been called 'the university of the British stage. During its first fifty years many of the best known actors of the time graduated there, including Peggy Ashcroft, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Margaret Leighton, Cedric Hardwicke, Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield, Ralph Richardson and Albert Finney. Directors too, Peter Brook and Douglas Seale among them. The Rep, as it was known, was built 'to serve an art instead of making that art serve a commercial purpose.' J C Trewin is the ideal historian, having reviewed productions there for much of the post second world war period.