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As published in the Diamond Anniversary programme
An invaluable historic document written by the late Mona Vince and entitled 'A History of Felixstowe Drama Festivals 1949-1989' is the source material for my writing. Mona writes in her opening lines that the Felixstowe Festivals started life at the (now gone) Pier Pavilion in 1949 with One-Act plays, and that Sir John Mills was the first President of the festival.
The One-Act play festival transferred to the newly opened Spa Pavilion in 1950 and, in June 1951, the first full-length festival was staged in addition to the One-Act festival held in October. Both festivals continued until 1963 when several letters of complaint about the falling standards and the number of plays to recall in one week (21) marked the end of the One-Act festival in Felixstowe.
Mona wrote about being 'a mere programme seller' and wearing a full-length evening gown! There was still a lot of class distinction and status around in the early years with not only the audience arriving in evening dresses (women of course) with shawls and fur coats by taxi, but, "big names" such as Lady Blanche Cobbold and Benjamin Britten as vice-presidents of the festival. I still try to maintain the 'dress code' to make the festival feel a bit special, but, (I hope) without the class/status division.
Between 1964 and 1968 there were two full-length play festivals held each year. In the May 1964 festival, Cardiff YMCA won with a new play "Billy Liar" and a young Michael Barlow in the role of Geoffrey Fisher. The Cardiff team have been coming to Felixstowe every year since that time. Mike died suddenly while on holiday in 2007, just before he was due to appear in our festival, but, thanks to Mike's family the team appeared at Felixstowe as they felt that that is what Mike would have wanted.
In the autumn festival of 1964 the runners-up were Parkside Players with "The Miracle Worker". This is another team that has been a regular visitor to Felixstowe since that time and similarly they lost in 2005 Steve Tillet, a long time performer/director for Parkside. They continue to appear at Felixstowe with Val Tillett (and sons) maintaining the Parkside tradition.
Throughout the seventies and eighties the festival ran with eight plays and was often 'over-subscribed' with teams wanting to take part. In 1979 both Deben Players and Parkside were left out of the final selection giving rise to a lot of letters of complaint in the local press.
I cannot leave out the altercation involving adjudicator Colin Dolley in 1989; a story which he has dined out on ever since. The author/director of "The House of Frankenstein" took exception to Colin's adjudication and leapt onto the stage, swearing and cursing, then ran out of the theatre and threw himself into the sea! The incident made the London press, so you can imagine how Mona Vince must have revelled in the media attention.
The nineties saw a change in the Festival directorship with Barbara Minns and Ruth Miller taking over following the death of Mona and changes to the way the Spa Pavilion was run, putting it under a commercial franchise. I joined the Festival committee in September 1999 in the run-up to the 50th anniversary festival year which also held the British All Winners festival in Felixstowe six weeks later.
In my first year as Festival Director in 2006/7, everything was going well until two weeks before the festival was due to start, when one team had to withdraw leaving me in a panic trying to find a possible late replacement, but without any success. As a result the first night of the festival was the Sunday, which was a first in itself, but, despite my baptism of fire, the week was a successful one.
Alan Dix 2010