Brighter Birmingham Programmes

Description:In common with other cities and towns in Britain and as promoted by the government, Birmingham City Council organised a variety of events during the Second World War to provide entertainments for war workers, and to encourage people to take their summer holidays at home.^{<small>1</small>} The city’s parks were obvious public spaces to hold the majority of these events, and the Parks Committee began to discuss using selected parks for what became the Brighter Birmingham scheme. The initiative was intended to ‘popularise Birmingham from a holiday and amusement point of view’, and proposed activities included organised sporting competitions; the incorporation of the regular dances in Muntz Park, held by the Bournbrook Entertainments Committee; the expansion of musical events to include concert parties and performances by jazz bands; and a series of open air plays in Cannon Hill, Lightwoods, and Handsworth parks, directed by Sir Barry Jackson, founder of Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and produced in aid of the Lord Mayor’s War Relief Fund.^{<small>2</small>}

The Brighter Birmingham programme of summer events was repeated annually during the remainder of the Second World War. Events for the 1944 season included a horse show at Kings Heath Park; a cycle polo match at the putting green and tennis courts at Queen’s Park, Harborne; and a dog show at Calthorpe Park in addition to the usual plays and musical and sporting competitions and events, which included physical training and dance displays by teachers and children from Birmingham schools, organised by the Education Department.^{<small>3</small>} Interest in summer activities declined after the end of the war, when people found it easier to go away on holiday, but the Parks Committee continued to support the Plays in the Parks programme, which included matinee performances for schoolchildren, and included productions by the Highbury Intimate Theatre Group and the Crescent Company. A more general programme of entertainments was also continued, featuring ‘variety’ shows and performances by military bands,^{<small>4</small>} as a ‘permanent contribution to a brighter city’.^{<small>5</small>} This annual festival of summer entertainments continued during the late 1940s and early 1950s, despite most of the events making losses, and attendance at open air plays being heavily dependent on weather conditions.^{<small>6</small>} By the mid 1950s, plays were being held at Cannon Hill Park only, in semi-permanent shelters. John English, director of the Arena Theatre Company which put on the plays, was determined to establish a broader programme of arts activities for children and young people, and in August 1960 prepared a memorandum for Birmingham City Council recommending the establishment of the Midlands Arts Centre in Cannon Hill Park.^{<small>7</small>}


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ Anthony Sutcliffe and Roger Smith, History of Birmingham, vol.3: Birmingham 1939-1970 (Oxford, 1974), p.313
² BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 4 May 1942 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/22]
³ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 3 July 1944 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/22]; Education Department Files Box 17
⁴ Birmingham Mail (8 April 1946)
⁵ Birmingham Post (9 April 1946)
⁶ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 7 March 1949 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/25]; Sutcliffe and Smith, pp.313-314
⁷ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 22 August 1960 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/37]</small></font>