n 1947, towards the end of an exceptionally dispiriting year, a handful of distinguished York churchmen, businessmen and local politicians met to discuss some unexpected news. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked the Arts Council of Great Britain to consider presenting a national Festival of the Arts to commemorate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Four years later, the revival of the York Mystery Plays in the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey was the most widely applauded festival event in the country, with over 26,000 people witnessing the Plays.

Festival Director Keith Thomson had originally envisaged only processional ‘street performances’ of York’s Corpus Christi Plays. If the preferred Festival author J.B. Priestley had responded favourably to a new commission, it goes without saying that the York Festival would have taken a very different course.

But once E. Martin Browne’s interest in producing the York Plays had been aroused, the die was cast and in June 1951 the Mystery Plays were revived in the ruins of St Mary's Abbey using a cast of local amateur actors.

Despite the enormous enthusiasm that greeted the return of the Plays, disagreements remained. A prohibition on the representation of God or Christ still existed in England, so the name of the professional actor hired to play Jesus for the 1951 production was kept a secret. And the Dean of York still maintained a ban on the representation of the giving of the Sacrament of the Last Supper.

Still, the tremendous interest that the Plays inspired - locally, nationally and internationally - created a new tradition that has continued until the present day.