Chocolate, Brown Brick and a Great Idea

If you were employed at the chocolate factory back in 1935, one of the first things you would see every day on the way to work was the building rising brick-by-brick across the road that would soon become the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. With it came the knowledge that it was being built for you. ­

This wasn’t the first time the factory had done something nice for the people who worked there. As well as free allotments, they founded a public library described as a temple of peace, created one of the country’s first personnel departments to care for their staff and started an organisation that remains the largest charity working to end poverty in the UK.

But the time had come to entertain them.

The Country’s Most Enjoyable Research Project

As progressive as he was, Seebohm Rowntree didn’t wake up one morning and decide to build a community theatre. First, he decided to research the subject. Extensively.

For years, he toured the country, visiting theatres and cherry-picking the bits that he liked the most. This was distilled into the famous brief he gave architect, Barry Parker – ‘Provide a hall which may be a fitting centre for those recreational and educational activities which make for a full and happy life.”

With it came a budget of £12,000 – £1.5 million in today’s money. And you have to say it was money well spent. Lit by electricity, heated by surplus steam piped over from the factory, it soon became one of the most advanced theatres in the country and one of the most welcoming.

It's Time to Play the Music

From the beginning, the line-up was incredibly diverse. Dance shows, variety shows, pantos, plays, elocution displays (think the nasal sound of a 1940’s British radio presenter.) As well as showing black and white movies, it was one of the first places in York with the capacity to play records.

Soon, the Cocoa Works Education and Scientific Society began hosting talks, attracting the famous and fascinating. Politicians, scientists, mountaineers and explorers all took to the Rowntree stage, as did television personalities like Lady Isabel Burnett, a woman who was rarely off British television for much of the 1950’s until she was eventually caught shoplifting a tin of tuna.

By the 1950s, the top artists in the country were appearing – stars like ventriloquist Ray Alan, actor Harry Worth and Cy Grant – the Guyanese-born singer who introduced Britain to the Calypso and sang Feeling Good before Nina Simone. More than just a venue, The Joseph Rowntree Theatre had become the story of York’s changing taste and culture.

Today the theatre is run entirely by volunteers, but this isn’t new. Originally, it was the factory workers who ensured that there was a packed calendar of events. Each department would stage its own productions, with dispatchers, engineers and cream packers (the one responsible for adding the fondant centre) competing to stage the most exciting and elaborate show.

This idea of community involvement is still kept alive today by the Rowntree Players (or The Cocoa Works Dramatic Society, as they were originally known) and the Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company – the much-loved local group that stage fundraising shows where all profits go back to the theatre itself. If you want to support them, they’ll be staging the classic musical Guys and Dolls from Wed 8 – Sat 11 July. As well as a great night out, every ticket sold helps keep the theatre running for future generations.

And York would not be the same without it.