The Buskins: a history since 1902

• Photographs of productions by St John’s College, c1866, in the diary of John Amphlett (Worc. 1864).

There was a ‘flurry of theatricals’ among students in the 1850s and 1860s, including amateur groups at Christ Church, St John’s, Balliol, Brasenose, and Oriel, but there is no evidence of any drama society at Worcester at this time.

The University authorities banned all drama activity in 1869. The official reason given was concern that acting was distracting undergraduates from their studies; but a London scandal involving several members of the ‘Shooting Stars’ (an early University drama society) dressed in female costumes, was undoubtedly a contributing factor.

The Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS) was established in 1885.

L-R: Nolan, St John’s College in The Rivals; Cumming of Oriel College; Turner, St John’s College in Iphigenia

Reference: Alan Mackinnon, The Oxford Amateurs (1910)

• Roland Braddell in the 1903 cricket photograph.
• Letter from Braddell to Alan Brown, 1946.

Buskins has a strong claim to being the longest-running college drama society in Oxford, although there is a difficulty in confirming this given a lack of foundation dates for other college drama clubs.

What is certain is that the Buskins were established in 1902 by Sir Roland Braddell (1901), for ‘reading plays once a week in various members’ rooms’, as he later described in the below letter.

Braddell was also captain of the rugby and cricket teams, and later wrote that the founding members of the Buskins were made up from the rowing, cricket and football set. It is perhaps because of this that the Buskins did not initially produce plays in Trinity Term, its members being preoccupied with sport and examinations.

• Corpus Christi College, Oxford: courtyard. Reproduction of a drawing by V.H. Bailey, 1902. Wellcome Collection.

This list, of the foundation dates of drama societies still in existence, was compiled with the help of college archivists across Oxford. Colleges may also have had earlier play reading societies, now defunct, for which records have not survived.

1889 – Corpus Christi Owlets established as a play reading society (first full-scale production not until 1949)

1902 – Worcester College Buskins established as a play reading society (first known production 1907)

1904 – Christ Church drama society established

1916 – earliest known mention of the Magdalen Dramatic Society (now known as the Magdalen Players)

1927 – earliest known production by the St John’s College Mummers

1928 – Jesus College Dramatic Society established

1930 – Merton College Floats established

1931 – The Queen’s College Eglesfield Players established

1933 – establishment of The Fantastiks at St Peter’s College

1934 – earliest known drama production at Exeter College (the John Ford Society was established in the 1950s)

1940 – The Univ. Players were established

1940 – The Trinity Players were established

1950s – earliest records of The Brasenose Players and the New College Dramatic Society

• The cast of The Jeweller of St James, 1907 from the photograph album of Augustine Beane Hellier (1903).
• Programme for The Rivals by Richard Sheridan, 1908.
• Programme for His Excellency the Governor, 1912.

Although minute books and other early records of the Buskins have not survived, it is clear that the club quickly progressed to full-scale productions.

The diary of William Elmhirst (1911) describes the performance of His Excellency the Governor, for which he acted as prompt:

We started just after 8. About 150 people there, & quite a good audience which could see jokes…It was all over by 10.15 & the 3 ladies were all presented with big bouquets. Everyone acted awfully well. And I was quite pleased to hear afterwards that none of the audience heard any of the prompts or knew that there had been any at all.

• Dinner menu from The Tragedy of Pompey the Great, 1920.
• The cast of The Tragedy of Pompey the Great, 1920.

The Buskins, like all College clubs, was paused during the First World War. It was re-established at a meeting on 3 June 1919, and the first production, the following year, was of The Tragedy of Pompey the Great by John Masefield. The production drew ‘a warm tribute of admiration from the author’, then living at Boar’s Hill. The Buskins organised a dinner the following week to celebrate their success.

However, while play readings continued in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms throughout the 1920s, summer productions were the exception rather than the rule. In 1922, the College Governing Body gave the JCR the choice between a Buskins’ production and a Commemoration Ball, and the Secretary of the Buskins recorded with disappointment that ‘the Junior Common Room had preferred the more material pleasures of a Commemoration Ball to the intellectual pabulum afforded by a production of Dr Faustus’.

• Programme for The Tempest, 1934 designed by Ralph Usherwood (1930).
• Photograph of the barge used at the end of the play, reproduced in the Worcester College Record of 1985.
• Photograph of C. F. Dimont as Caliban.

This exhibition celebrates 90 years of Buskins Shakespeare productions in the College gardens. That tradition begins with The Tempest, produced by Nevill Coghill (Fellow of Exeter, 1924-1957) in the summer of 1934. The lake was central to the production: Caliban emerged from the water, soaking wet, and at the close of the play, all the characters, except Ariel and Caliban, embarked on a barge rowed by members of the Boat Club.

The production was praised in The Times as ‘an undergraduate affair’ in which all parts (including female) were played by members of Worcester, in contrast to the increasingly professionalised productions by OUDS.

• Programme for The Merchant of Venice, 1935.
• Photographs of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1938.
• Poster for The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1936.

After the success of The Tempest in 1934, the following year’s production of The Merchant of Venice was unfortunately plagued by terrible weather that led performances to be cancelled. In contrast to the previous year, the female parts were taken by women, including Kay Coghill, daughter of the producer. Another notable cast member during the 1930s was A. N. Bryan-Brown (Fellow and Bursar) who routinely played any ‘old man’ role.

• Programme for Tamburlaine the Great Part II by Christopher Marlowe, 1933.

The first collaboration between the Buskins and Nevill Coghill was in fact a year before The Tempest. This was the first recorded performance of Tamburlaine the Great Part II by Christopher Marlowe in England since 1680, a fact that was reported when it was reviewed in The Times:

The players for the most part showed themselves worthy of the traditions of the Buskins, a society which some years ago stood high in repute among undergraduate dramatic societies, but which has been allowed to lapse during the past few years.

• Programme for the OUDS production of The Tempest, 1949.
• Photograph of Ariel in The Tempest, 1978.
• Programme for The Tempest, 1978.

The Buskins collaborated with Nevill Coghill several times, but it is his OUDS production in the College gardens that has become legendary. It was at the end of this performance that Ariel seemingly ran across the surface of the lake (in reality, on duckboards placed just beneath the surface). This coup de théâtre has been emulated in several Buskins productions since for, as the producer of the 1978 Tempest recently wrote ‘not an original idea but steal from the best’. However, it was not as successful this time around:

The Tempest was cursed… the boards were set for the opening night a couple of inches below the water level. Unfortunately the level of the lake dropped and every duck in Oxford decided the boards were a great place to settle.

• Provost Lys’ Christmas card, 1933.
• Memoir of Norman Sandiford Power, 1989.

In this memoir from 1989, Norman Sandiford Power (1935) describes his choreographed fall into the lake during the 1937 production of The Romanticks by Edmond Rostand. Apart from developing ‘a foul cold’, his greatest fear was the swans.

Read Norman Sandiford Power’s memoir

• Programme and cast photograph for The Comedy of Errors, 1954.
• Photographs of the boat from The Tempest, 1955.

The programme for The Comedy of Errors of 1954 specifically states that the performance will be ‘At the Lakeside’. Unfortunately, the only surviving photograph in the Buskins’ archive is too dark to show the backdrop. The following year, The Tempest was mounted with a floating galleon, as seen in the photographs below.

• Set design in the Ring Round the Moon programme, 1961.
• Sue Bevan, as Isabelle, in a promotional photograph, 1961.
• Poster for Ring Round the Moon, 1961.

The lake was used to good effect beyond Shakespeare productions. It formed the backdrop for the 1961 production of Ring Round the Moon, and again more than one member of the cast was required to enter the water. The play included a set of identical twins, both played by Richard Hooper. A stunt double, Martin Kyle, was used for a scene where one of the twins jumped in the lake; Martin remembers being dripping wet, and not even getting to take a bow.

The local press reported how Walls Ice Cream agreed to provide dry ice to create mist on the surface of the lake and continued:

The lake is no mere backcloth but a necessary part of the production. Boats will appear on the water and to add to the evening of son et lumiere there will be Chinese lanterns, fireworks and blank cartridges. Vince “Climax” Duggleby is composing the music and leading a very extrovert band.

• Plan of the set, including pontoon stage on the surface of the Lake.
• Promotional bookmark for The Merchant of Venice, 2013.
• Promotional video for The Merchant of Venice, 2013.

The Merchant of Venice has only been produced twice at Worcester, in 1935 and 2013. The second production took place on a floating pontoon moored alongside the Nuffield Lawn. This plan of the set was submitted to the Gardens Committee for approval. The promotional video below shows the making of the Venetian canal poles.

• Design for raked audience seating for The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1949.
• Photograph of the cast of Romeo and Juliet, 1946.
  
• Programme for Romeo and Juliet, 1949.

Romeo and Juliet in 1946 is the earliest known play in the Fellows’ Garden. Permission may have been easier to obtain because Classics Fellow A. N. Bryan-Brown played Capulet (standing in the centre of this photograph).

In 1949, the Fellows’ Garden played host to The Merry Wives of Windsor, using a bespoke raked seating plan to afford excellent views of the Senior Common Room as a backdrop.

• Cast photographs from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1960.
• Flyer for The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1960 (front and back).
• Photographs from Much Ado About Nothing, 1987.
• Photograph of Cymbeline dress rehearsal, 2022.
• Press clipping about The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1960.

In 1960, following the revolutionary theory of Leslie Hotson, whose book Shakespeare’s Wooden O had been published the previous year, the audience was seated all around an oblong stage, entered from both ends by the actors. The publicity for the production used both the innovative staging, and the fact there was a dog in the cast (Sooty, a black spaniel playing Crab), to promote the show.

In 1987, Much Ado About Nothing, like many other shows, used the cottages as a backdrop; it also utilised trees on the Nuffield Lawn as hiding places for the cast. More recent productions include 2022’s Cymbeline, the only time this play has been produced.

• Photograph of cast members in Twelfth Night, 2016.
• Cast and crew of Twelfth Night, 2016 with Provost Jonathan Bate.
• Christmas card with an image from Twelfth Night, 2016.
• Photograph of dress rehearsal for As You Like It, 2024.

More recent productions have often used the beautiful setting of the Provost’s Garden as their stage. Most appropriately, the hedging of the Rose Garden was used to great effect in the 2016 production of Twelfth Night. The image was used by the College for that year’s Christmas card and also appeared on the cover of the Magazine.

In 2024, the 90th anniversary production of As You Like It was staged in the Provost’s Garden, doubling as Arden.

• Photographs of dances in Romeo and Juliet, 1946.
• Music composed by Henry Vere Fitzroy Somerset for Romeo and Juliet.
• Caricature of Somerset by Ralph Usherwood (1930).

Henry ‘Vere’ Somerset was Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Worcester from 1921 to 1957. He was also a keen musician and his obituary records that ‘he loved to play the piano and to dally with many other instruments’. He composed widely, including anthems, carols, marches, and two operas.

• Music composed by Christopher Dearnley for The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1949.

These manuscripts are music for ‘To Shallow Rivers’ from Act 3 Scene 1, and ‘Fie on sinful fantasy’ from Act 5 Scene 5, sung by Colin Ruck (1948) in the role of Sir Hugh Evans.

Christopher Dearnley was the Organ Scholar at Worcester College from 1948 to 1952, and later became organist and director of music at St Paul’s Cathedral from 1968 to 1990.

• Programme for The Tempest, 1955.
• Music composed by Gerald Seaman for The Tempest.
• Rehearsal photographs of The Tempest.
• Design for Caliban’s facial make up for The Tempest.

This manuscript music was composed for Caliban’s song in Act 2 Scene 2 by Gerald Seaman (Keble, 1954). The photographs from an album show the actors playing Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban rehearsing the scene.

• Programme for Toad of Toad Hall, 1957.
• Recording of music composed by Richard Drakeford.

Richard Drakeford was Organ Scholar at Worcester College from 1955 to 1958. During his time at the College, he composed for the Music Society and the Buskins. This recording from Toad of Toad Hall is the only recording of a Buskins’ production that survives in the Archives.

• Original script for Decline and Fall, 1966.
• Poster for Decline and Fall, 1966.

The Buskins also created new music productions from scratch, including a musical adaptation of the novel Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, which opens with a memorable scene in the quad of an Oxford college.

• Album of photographs from the 1955 tour of The Tempest.

After performing in the College gardens, the Buskins took their 1955 production of The Tempest on tour to Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire. The photographs show the cast advertising the production, at work and rest, and signing autographs for schoolgirls.

• Scrapbook with photographs and programme from A Penny for a Song at The Minack Theatre, Cornwall, 1962.

• Buskins members outside the Kenton Theatre, Henley.
• Poster for One Over the Eight, Henley, 1959.
• Programmes for One Over the Eight (Henley, 1959) and Next Time Yes (Hammersmith, 1960).

In his 2015 memoir, As Far As I Remember, Michael Bawtree recalled:

The Buskins company – actors, musicians, cooks and bottlewashers, stage and house managers, stage designer, painters and publicity folk – travelled down the Thames Valley on motorbikes, in dilapidated cars and an old London taxi. After visiting the Kenton Theatre in Henley town, we found out way among the fields to the barn which was to be our home for two weeks… somehow our cook Alan Carter was able to put together a robust meal for us all, which we ate greedily in the moonlight, lit romantically by lanterns and candle lamps. We sang and played guitars and drank the beer we had been sure to bring with us.

• Photographs of the cast dancing in As You Like It, 1975.
• Programme for As You Like It, 1975.
• Photographs taken during rehearsals in Oban, June to July 1975.

In June 1975, the Bukins headed up to Oban on the west coast of Scotland to rehearse As You Like It. The performed for a week at the church hall in the town before travelling down to the Brewery Theatre in Kendal and finished their tour in the gardens of The Queen’s College back in Oxford.