Scotsman Archive

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THEATRE POSTERS

21 August, 1950

Those who said there were only three Scottish plays worth reviving at the Edinburgh Festival, and that to try to find others was like scraping the bottom of the pot, were taking a too pessimistic view, said Mr Charles Graves, when he opened an exhibition of Edinburgh theatre posters at Eyre Place on Saturday. At Festival time we were continually telling each other that the development of the theatre in Scotland was a recent growth. That was not true, or at least only half true. The people of Edinburgh had, in the Middle Ages, a real love of play-acting, and fought hard to retain the right to present their Robin Hood plays. From the time of Sir David Lindsay until the present there had been a practically unbroken chain of Scottish dramatists. Mr Graves said that it was worth noting that both in France and in this country the first poster was designed to advertise plays.

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