It’s not all fluffed lines: the serious business of amateur dramatics

The greatest pain of lockdown has been, for me, the absence of am-dram. In one half of my life I’m your financial columnist with a constant eye on the villains and heroes of the global business scene. In the other half, I’m the panto dame of my Yorkshire home town and the veteran of dozens of other stage roles — from Canon Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest to Mole in The Wind in the Willows — in the friendly little arts centre that we created for our community 30 years ago. My theatrical side-career over all that time has been creative, liberating, challenging and the fulcrum of my social life. But since I last trod the boards in February (in an Alan Bennett vicar sketch) it has, like so much else, been reduced to no more than an occasional Zoom. And I’m bereft.

So it has been some consolation to read two books which, in very different ways, record and celebrate the rich story of Britain’s amateur theatre.