This second festival was notable for two reasons.

Firstly, while the old converted chapel (the "tin hut") continued to be the main venue for Questors productions, the newly built Stanislavsky Room (a.k.a. The Questors Studio), originally designed as a rehearsal room, had begun to establish itself as a performance space for more experimental work. The previous year Alfred Emmet had directed the first full in-the-round production there (THE GLASS MENAGERIE). This was followed in January of 1961 by WAITING FOR GODOT and in April it played host to the Stephen Joseph's Studio Theatre Company with three plays also presented in the round.

So theatre-in-the-round was very much in vogue and one of this Festival's new plays, THE COURTYARD, was selected to continue in that vein in the studio space - although not totally in-the-round because it had the audience seated on three sides .

Secondly, the last minute decision to include a controversial play about Apartheid in South Africa, caused an international stir!