Story: Culture and recreation in the city

Up to the 1930s amateur theatre in the cities continued to be supplemented with touring shows. J. C. Williamson was an important promoter and his firm was responsible for the visit of Dame Sybil Thorndike and her husband, Lewis Casson, who visited over the Christmas period 1932/33.  It was reported that despite her fine acting and the popular nature of the plays performed by her company, the audiences were not as large as expected. The effects of the economic depression and the coming of the talkies (films with recorded sound) began to affect the economics of touring shows.