The Pentabus Archive– 40 years of theatre history
An award of £2,000 was made to Pentabus Arts Limited to assist with the cataloguing of our 40 year
archive in September 2013. The BAC panel noted that they were ‘very impressed with the
application you submitted … and we recognise that the company is unusual as a rural and
community touring theatre, and more-so because it is one of the only surviving theatre companies
that were founded in the community arts movement of the 1970s.’
We were thrilled to receive the award and the recognition of the importance of the collection. It
was also the start of a new partnership with Shropshire Archives. We worked closely with Mary
McKenzie during preparation of the bid who was able to offer us a Senior Archivist to work on the
project, Samantha (Sal) Mager.
Sal quickly became one of the team and with the assistance of two of our regular Volunteers, Mike
and Stephen, we were able to deliver the project as envisaged.
Picture: the first Pentabus Archive Box Sal completed
Sal stated of her time with us: “It’s been a delight working with Pentabus to help bring this
fascinating collection to life. The project will, I hope, not only ensure the long-term preservation of
this unique record spanning 40 years of Pentabus, but also help to generate interest in its potential to
throw new light on the development of the performing arts in this period.”
The Project
The project had 4 strands:
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Archiving the collection
Sourcing new material
Volunteering
Retaining Archive Skills
Picture – Pentabus rehearsals in the mid 70’s
Archiving
Following an initial project meeting with Mary McKenzie,
Sal Mager and the Pentabus team, it was agreed Sal
would work with us roughly 1 day a week from October
2013 onwards here at the Pentabus office, with 20 days
work in total. Sal’s primary task was to undertake a
collection survey, assess preservation and packaging
requirements and create a catalogue using specialist
CALM software. We would then physically transfer the
whole archive collection to its new home.
Picture –Gunfight, an early outdoor Pentabus show
After Sal’s initial survey it was discovered we had a larger archive material collection than initially
envisaged, including the past 40 years of shows, company archives, posters and original art work,
music recordings, photographs, touring information, videos and DVD’s. The majority of Sal’s time
was therefore consumed with the actual physical archiving of the collection and completing the
accession of the collection. We were able to catalogue the whole collection to a detailed level,
rather than just a summary collection as originally envisaged, which was a testament to the quality
of Sal’s work in her assessment of the collection. Sal’s work included:
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Surveying and cataloguing the collection
Records numbered, labelled and stored ready for public access on request
Cataloguing in line with International Standards of Archival Description (ISAD-G)
Catalogue completed and made available on-line, including digital copies of a selection of
records for each show (publicity and programmes)
Ensuring the collection was accessioned with receipt and agreement completed
Report of the work carried out and suggestions for follow-on work
Sourcing New Material
Picture - one of the first ‘Penta-bus’ touring buses
One of the very interesting elements of the
project was seeking new material for the
collection. We were aware there were likely
to be gaps in the company collection that we
held on site, particularly in terms of the
theatre show record, education programmes
and patchy publicity records. We used our
website, social media, the Shropshire Council
publicity channels and local press to generate
awareness of the archive project and seek new material. We were particularly thrilled to receive a
college project from a member of the public, Val, after she attended one of our shows in the summer.
The project file had been in Val’s loft for the past 30 odd years and she was very happy to donate it to
the project. The surprise for us was that it contained details of the first two Pentabus tours, including
names of two shows we had no knowledge or information about (Lost in London and The Magic Map)
as well as a copy of the West Midlands Arts Board report which recommended the formation of the
company in the first instance, a report the current Arts Council England no longer has within its
archive.
Val recollected
‘I was really interested to see the Pentabus minibus and display in the Visitor Centre as I had some
contact with Pentabus in 1974 or 1975 when my husband and I were students at Hereford College of
Education. I suppose my first reaction was "Wow, they're still going", then of course heard that you
were coming up for your 40th birthday. At Hereford, Pentabus visited the College and performed. At
the time I was doing drama as my main subject and looking for a subject for my special study (more
extended essay than dissertation) and thought that it would be interesting to look at how a small
travelling company worked and consequently spent a day with the company observing a meeting and
a rehearsal (in Gloucestershire somewhere?). Later they brought a production to the rural villages of
Herefordshire and the director, Sue Dunderdale and her partner, Richard Albrecht, stayed at our
house for a few days while the show toured. At the end of the course in summer 1975 we moved to
Dorset and now Fordingbridge in Hampshire, where we've been for 32 years. I know that somewhere
(in the loft?) I have a few bits - at least a programme if not more, from the early days of Pentabus
and will search them out’
We are thrilled these documents will now form part of the collection at their new home at Shropshire
Archives where they will be fully accessible to the public. Similarly we received some further publicity
information from other audience members, including some original posters from one village hall who
regularly promoted Pentabus Shows in the early 70’s and further publicity from Jonathan Cross, one
of the founder members of Pentabus who had read about the archive project in the local newspaper,
a direct result of the press release we sent out. Jonathan visited Sal at the Archives and spent 2 hours
talking to her and delivering material.
We are aware there could be more to add to the collection of this nature and will continue to promote
the fact we are collecting memorabilia and memories throughout our birthday year during 2014.
Volunteering
We put out an initial call for volunteers to work on
the archive project and decided to focus the
volunteer work on one critical area of the archive
project – knowledge. We know very little of the
company’s actual impact – particularly in terms of
the total number of writer’s commissions, number
of actors engaged, and where the company has
toured to during its 40 years. We were lucky
enough to have two of our regular volunteers work
with us over the past 4 months to begin to flesh out
some of this detail. Having Sal with us from October meant she had an excellent overall knowledge
of the company by this point – through her cataloguing of the collection – to enable fruitful
conversation alongside the work of volunteers Stephen and Mike. Mike has focused on creating us a
large spreadsheet with every single show, and listing all tour dates (if known) as well as writer, actors,
directors, musical directors, stage managers, designers etc. This has led to us being able to find out
some key statistics about the company and its impact over the past 40 years – something we literally
did not know 12 months ago. Mike is currently finishing off this task and it should be completed within
the next few weeks.
Picture above: Archivist Sal Mager, Volunteer Mike Price and Pentabus MD Rachael Griffin deliver the Archive
In addition, we had several large boxes of old photographs which were in a complete jumble, as well
as beautiful original images, playbills, poster and promotional materials. Volunteers worked with us
in two ways to order and digitise this element of the collection
1. Shropshire Council Archive volunteers have professionally digitised 1 image for every CALM
record for the eventual archive database
2. Pentabus volunteers have sorted and catalogued the photographs for each show and digitised
these for future use
We had hoped to fully digitise all elements of the collection for use on our own website (i.e. scripts),
but in hindsight this was quite ambitious. However, it is wonderful the catalogued archive on the
CALM database will have at least 1 digital image per record, as well as being able to feature images on
our new website on the past production page, which had its initial launch in March 2014.
In total, volunteer time on the project has accounted to 102 hours over 17 days.
Volunteer Mike has said of his time with the project: ‘it’s fascinating and fun to see the past 40 years
come to life, and frustrating to encounter the gaps. It’s gratifying when some of those gaps are filled,
definitely not ‘shooting the past’ - hopefully a net with more threads than holes! I feel very privileged
to have been involved.’
Retaining Archive Skills
There is no doubt that working alongside Sal as a professional archivist
over a period of several months has generally raised the company’s
awareness of the importance of archiving, archiving standards and
procedures. As part of her final package of work with us Sal will be
providing a set of good practice guidelines for us to continue to use
within the team in terms of future archiving, as well as some training
on the collection and how to access it. As a company will make a
commitment to add to the archive once every 5 years.
Photo – archiving Pentabus photos
Key Outcomes
The project achieved the following outcomes
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The company archive has been successfully delivered to a secure and fully accessible public
archive facility, open to members of the public
The whole Pentabus collection will be fully searchable online via the Shropshire Council
CALM database
We received new donations to the collection, including materials previously unknown to the
company
102 volunteer hours contributed to the project
A new partnership between Shropshire Council and Pentabus Theatre Company
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Raised awareness of the company’s collection and its provenance
Ensured the company has clear statistics about its breadth and impact – 150 shows, worked
with over 47 writers, toured to nearly 350 different venues and delivered in excess of 1000
performances – and we are still counting as Mike continues his work with us.
Accessibility
We delivered the full collection Mid April to Shropshire
Archives where it will be stored in secure conditions and
made available to the general public both though its online
catalogue and by visiting the archives in person in
Shrewbsury. (Photo – archive facility at Shropshire Archives)
The catalogue will be made available on the Shropshire
Archives online catalogue on the Discovering Shropshire’s
History website (http://search.shropshirehistory.org.uk/ ) and also feed into The National Archives
site in due course (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra). We will link to this database via our
own website and currently have one page detailing the high level detail of the collection on our own
website.
We very much enjoyed having the benefit of a professional archivist within the team to increase our
own knowledge and skills. Likewise, Sal is now very knowledgeable on the history of Pentabus and
also attended our current theatre shows during her time with us, and has become a new theatre
convert!
How you can help!
We are still looking for further volunteers to help us add to the past productions section of our
website, and the whole collection is just waiting for a University Student to use it as part of a
research piece or dissertation project. If you are interested, just get in touch! www.pentabus.co.uk