The Bletchley Park Drama Group

Far from the bright lights of London and other major towns, the staff of Bletchley Park organised much of their own entertainment. As part of this, the Bletchley Park Drama Group staged performances of established plays and wrote their own original material, usually musicals. The surviving Drama Group documentation, including scripts, programmes, rehearsal schedules and financial accounts, provides a fascinating and detailed window into the social side of working at Bletchley Park.

This Collections uncovered album was first published on 22 June 2018.

This programme accompanied what we think to have been the first public performance staged by the Drama Group. Professionally produced, the programme includes an advertisement on its back cover.

The first Drama Group performance featured “Weatherwise”, by Noel Coward, and “The Two Gentlemen of Soho”, a single-act black comedy. Variety performances separated the two short plays.

Our collections include original material written and performed by the Drama Group, usually based on their lives at Bletchley Park. This script, for a production called “A more insane department…”, shows Bletchley Park staff poking fun at themselves and their colleagues.

Here “Bak-Rum-Boi” elaborates on working life at Bletchley Park, in a tribute to Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado.

The Drama Group’s portfolio was broad, including works by Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde and J.B. Priestley. They also tackled Shakespeare on occasion, as in this four-night run of “Much Ado about Nothing”.

Several leading Codebreakers were also active Drama Group members. For instance. Richard Pendered contributed much to breaking the German navy’s “Offizier” encipherment system, while Oliver Lawn and Shaun Wylie developed methods to speed-up Enigma key discovery.

Organising a performance around work at Bletchley Park could be complicated. This rehearsal notice from December 1944 lists two locations and numerous changes to the schedule. Note point 5: “ALL WORDS TO BE KNOWN PLEASE”.

The Drama Group had to organise every aspect of each performance themselves – from costumes to catering. This is an invoice for the coffee, beer, sandwiches – and one telegram! – required for the January 1945 production “It’s the end”.

Drama Group productions continued beyond the end of the World War Two. Two months after Japan’s formal surrender, on 2 September 1945, the Drama Group put on their final production: “By Candlelight”, in aid of the St. Mary’s Hospital Paddington Penicillin Fund.

Probably because they knew it was their last hurrah, a number of cast members wrote messages in and signed this copy of the programme. Count von Baltin (middle left) was played by Brin Newton-John, father of Hollywood actress and singer Olivia Newton-John.