A FASCINATING Malvern Festival exhibition packed with photographs, playscripts and even props, not to mention a small tree, will be open in the Barry Jackson room at the Coach House theatre during this year’s Malvern Festival.

The tree, a two foot sapling, is a descendent of the mulberry tree planted by George Bernard Shaw in Priory Park in 1936 to mark his 80th birthday. A seed from the tree, which was uprooted by gales in 2000, has been nurtured by landscape designer Carly Tinkler for the last few years.

Also in the exhibition is an unusual wood carving, carved from a piece of the original mulberry tree, saved after the tree came down. The carving by Andy Laffan is called Walking Tall and is a figure of George Bernard Shaw.

The exhibition organisers have also tracked down the spade that was used by Shaw to plant the original tree in 1936 and this too will be on display.

The exhibition is free and will be open throughout the festival, which started on Monday, June 1, and finishes on Saturday June 13 with displays of material from the MTP’s own archive and items from Malvern Theatres, including paintings, photographs, scripts and old theatre programmes.

The memorabilia reflects the history of the festival, which this year, celebrates its 80th anniversary. The festival was founded by theatre entrepreneur Barry Jackson, the creator of the Birmingham Rep. Jackson was keen to hold a summer drama festival in a rural environment along the lines of European festivals. Malvern, where he owned a house, seemed the ideal location as it already had a 900 seat theatre and, as a legacy from Malvern’s heyday as a Victorian spa town, a number of hotels.

The festivals were a huge success and became an important part of the social and artistic calendar. They continued from the first in 1929 until the outbreak of war in 1939 and featured the work of contemporary playwrights, like Shaw himself, and actors who went on to become household names. The festivals were revived in 1977.