Chronicle Summer 2024

30 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

1887, audiences of over 400 were regularly attending and two performances were necessary. Depending on the scale of the play and the number of actors on stage, the usual venue was Big School although the

himself with other members of staff ‘to hold productions together’. The Chronicle would publish an early notice of the next play,

audiences not only of pupils, parents, OSE and friends but also dignitaries from Oxford, and local citizens from the surrounding area. Auditions would start as early as the previous Lent Term and rehearsals then began in the early summer. Cowell would seldom include a whole Shakespearean play but only certain acts, trying to exclude potentially embarrassing love scenes and over-exuberant battle encounters. After dabbling with readings of The Merchant of Venice and Henry VIII in 1880, Cowell’s first major production was Julius Caesar in 1882, making full use of the newly built Big School stage. It was a brave choice and showed Cowell’s ambition – he played the part of Brutus himself. The play was an ‘outstanding success’ and involved a long evening with a half-hour interval for refreshments. Despite this initial success there were still murmurings that drama would never really take off at the School, and that compared with the music scene it was lagging. Nevertheless Cowell, with Simeon’s full backing, ploughed on, continuing to act in the first productions

invite pupils to audition, include an explanation of the underlying meaning of the play (written by Cowell), and then, finally, print critiques of the actual

Dining Hall (with excellent acoustics), the Warden’s House and even the Chapel were used on rare occasions. By 1894 Cowell was confident enough to try Macbeth for the first

performances. These reviews

time, with a large cast and a full battery of ‘special lighting effects’ supplied by the School’s chemical laboratories. Not everything

were usually written by parents, OSE and former teachers and they didn’t pull their punches - praise

went to plan - in front of a huge audience ‘The fainting Lady Macbeth carried by four Supers folded up like a book, as two chose one wing to carry her off and the other two elected the other; there was little of royal majesty in the view vouchsafed to the audience’ (Desmond Hill’s 1962 A History of St Edward’s School ).

was given when due but there were also also raw criticisms of failures! Cowell was permitted to respond (which he often did) sometimes rather haughtily, other times more reasonably. The professionalism and effort put into these extravaganzas soon paid off and by

Soldiers in Richard III , 1904. Above: Wilfrid Cowell c.1900