The Langholm Amateur Dramatic Society (‘LADS’), later the Langholm Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society (‘LAODS), appears to have been active from around 1883, with early productions including:

• Rob Roy Macgregor, otherwise known as Auld Lang Syne, by Isaac Pocock.
• Ernest Maltravers, based on an 1837 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, known for his phrases such as ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ and ‘It was a dark and stormy night‘, from the opening line to the novel Paul Clifford.
• Box and Cox, a farce by John Maddison Morton.

However, its shows were sporadic until the organisation’s heydays from the mid-1900s. During the war, larger drama productions were provided by visiting theatre companies, and there were many smaller-scale performances by local people, usually as fundraisers.

See Theatre for the main visiting productions in 1915. There was also a large Wild West extravaganza that put on a show in a 10,000-seat tent (see 8th June 1915 in the Diary).