The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Sites and Theatre in York
The great post war cultural flowering is shown in full bloom in the York Festival of 1963, bringing to life the great past of the city with the medieval Mystery Plays and more.
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Overview
This is a lovely portrait of York in the, much less busy, early sixties, illustrating well the city’s great history and many cultural attractions. Among the highlights is footage of the 1963 production of the York Mystery Plays and the York Regatta.
This film was made by York photographer and filmmaker May Webb, who, with her husband Frank, ran a photography business in York, as well running the York cine club, the Apollo Film Unit. The 1963 York Festival included Britten's War Requiem, a Paul Klee exhibition and Philip Massinger's play, A New Way to Pay Old Debts. But the highlight was the Mystery Plays which had been revived in their modern guise in 1951 in association with the Festival of Britain of that year. They were performed in the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, at three and then four year intervals, until 1988, moving thereafter. The eagle eyed may catch a glimpse, towards the end, of the award winning actor David Bradley in his younger days.
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