[1] Despite being an initial success, public support and financing for the festivals was lost after Boughton joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), supported the miners during the 1926 United Kingdom general strike, and performed a nativity opera (Bethlehem) depicting Jesus as the son of a miner and King Herod as a capitalist.
[3] Apart from the founding of a national theatre, Boughton and Buckley envisaged a summer school and music festival based on utopian principles.
[4] This was inspired at least in part by the concept of the "temple theatre" first proposed by Richard Wagner and its corresponding festival, Bayreuth: a place for the common people to congregate around art.
[1] In 1924 the festival hosted the première of Boughton’s musical setting of Thomas Hardy’s play The Queen of Cornwall.
[7] The festivals ended ignominiously when Boughton's backers withdrew funds following a scandalous production of his Nativity opera Bethlehem in London.