"MALVERN Spring Festival of the Arts, to be staged next year, is to have a new look from the old Shaw Drama Festival, the pioneer event of its kind in the country and not held since 1949," reported the Gazette on its front page 50 years ago.

"The festival, estimated to cost £15,000, will feature a new play by the English Stage Company, a dramatic sequence The Vision of Piers Plowman by Professor John Lawlor, visits by famous symphony and chamber orchestras and international artists, the National Youth Theatre, a British Drama League residential course, a festival of films arranged in conjunction with the British Film Institute, and many 'fringe' and social events including jazz concerts, "For the first time the medium of television will be highlighted and the setting-up of an outside studio in the Winter Gardens for demonstration of TV techniques and the relay of plays and other programmes is happily envisaged.

"Mr John Lowe, who directed the successful Coventry Festival last year, reported that consultations were still going on with many important artistic and financial interests.

"A special Sunday evening entertainment - Sir Barry Jackson Remembered in Affection - was proposed, and that contributing would be famous actors and others who had worked to his inspiration in the early days of the Malvern Festival.

"The National Youth Theatre had welcomed a suggestion that they might visit the festival, possibly to play their successful Julius Caesar.

"Turning to musical events, Mr Lowe said that Paul Tortelier had been engaged to play Elgar's Cello Concerto, and that a composer had been commissioned to write a gay Festival Overture.

"The Duchess of Gloucester has consented to be patron of the Festival, it was announced by the Lord-Lieutenant, Admiral Sir William Tennant."