Embassy Theatre (London)
Encyclopedia
The Embassy Theatre is a theatre at 64, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage
Swiss Cottage
Swiss Cottage is a district of the London Borough of Camden in London, England. Thedistrict is located north-west of Charing Cross. It is centred on the junction of Avenue Road and Finchley Road and is the location of Swiss Cottage tube station.-Etymology:...

, London.

Early years

The Embassy Theatre was opened as a repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...

 company in September 1928 on the initiative of Sybil Arundale
Sybil Arundale
Sybil Arundale was a stage and film actress.In 1893 she appeared in music halls with her sister, Grace where they were billed as "The Sisters Arundale". She also starred in musicals, including My Lady Molly...

 and Herbert Jay., when the premises of Hampstead Conservatoire of Music
Hampstead Conservatoire
The Hampstead Conservatoire was a private college for music and the arts at 64, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London.The building, previously the Eton Avenue Hall, was reconstructed in 1890...

 were adapted by architect Andrew Mather. The following were some of its productions:
  • The Yellow Streak, September 1928. This was the opening production, featuring Jeanne de Casalis
    Jeanne de Casalis
    Jeanne de Casalis was an African-born British actress of stage, radio, and film.Born in Basutoland as Casalis de Pury, she was educated in France - where her father owned one of the largest corset retailers, Charneaux - and began her career in music before working in London.She appeared on stage...

    , Martita Hunt
    Martita Hunt
    Martita Hunt was an English theatre and film actress.-Early life:Hunt was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 January 1900 to British parents Alfred and Marta Hunt...

     and Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....

    . The play was praised by the writer Dorothy Richardson
    Dorothy Richardson
    Dorothy Miller Richardson was a British author and journalist.-Biography:Richardson was born in Abingdon in 1873. Her family moved to Worthing, West Sussex in 1880 and then Putney, London in 1883...

    .
  • The Seventh Guest, October 1928, a mystery melodrama with Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....

     and Margaret Rawlings
    Margaret Rawlings
    Margaret Rawlings was a distinguished English stage actress, born in Osaka, Japan, daughter of the Rev George William Rawlings and his wife Lilian . She died two weeks three days before her 90th birthday....



From September 1930 to March 1932 the theatre was directed by Alec L. Rea and A. R. Whatmore
A. R. Whatmore
A. R. Whatmore was a British actor, playwright and producer of plays.- Early life :Arthur Reginald Whatmore was born on 30 May 1889 at Much Marcle in Herefordshire, the son of Charles Arthur Whatmore and his wife Emma...

. Productions included:
  • Black Coffee
    Black Coffee (play)
    Black Coffee is a play by the British crime-fiction author Agatha Christie which was produced initially in 1930. The first piece that Christie wrote for the stage, it launched a successful second career for her as a playwright....

    (premiere), by Agatha Christie
    Agatha Christie
    Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

     (her first play), December 1930, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Francis L. Sullivan
    Francis L. Sullivan
    Francis Loftus Sullivan was an English film and stage actor. He attended Stonyhurst, the Jesuit public school in Lancashire, England whose alumni include Charles Laughton and Arthur Conan Doyle.A heavily built man with a striking double-chin and a deep voice, Sullivan made his acting debut at the...

     as Poirot
    Hercule Poirot
    Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...

     and also featuring Donald Wolfit
    Donald Wolfit
    Sir Donald Wolfit, KBE was a well-known English actor-manager.-Biography:Wolfit, who was "Woolfitt" at birth was born at New Balderton, near Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire and attended the Magnus Grammar School and made his stage début in 1920...

    .
  • Carpet Slippers, December 1930, with Griffith Jones
    Griffith Jones (actor)
    Griffith Jones was an English film, stage and television actor.Born in London, England, Jones was the son of a Welsh-speaking dairy owner. In 1932, he married Robin Isaac, and they had two children: the actors Gemma Jones and Nicholas Jones...

     (his debut) and Sebastian Shaw
    Sebastian Shaw (actor)
    Sebastian Lewis Shaw was an English actor, director, novelist, playwright and poet. During his 65-year career, Shaw appeared in dozens of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions....

  • Mary Broome, by Allan Monkhouse
    Allan Monkhouse
    Allan Noble Monkhouse was an English playwright, critic, essayist and novelist.He was born in Barnard Castle, County Durham. He worked in the cotton trade, in Manchester, and settled in Disley, Cheshire...

    , December 1931. with Robert Donat
    Robert Donat
    Robert Donat was an English film and stage actor. He is best-known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Goodbye, Mr...

     and Herbert Lomas
    Herbert Lomas (actor)
    Herbet Lomas was a British actor who appeared in more than forty films in a career lasting between 1931 and 1955. He was born in Burnley, Lancashire in 1887 and made his first screen appearance in the 1931 film Hobson's Choice.-Filmography:...

    . This was a sudden and (still) unexplained substitution for the play originally announced, namely Chimneys
    Chimneys (play)
    Chimneys is a play by crime writer Agatha Christie and is based upon her own 1925 novel The Secret of Chimneys. The play was written in 1931 and was due to open at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage in December of that year...

    , by Agatha Christie
    Agatha Christie
    Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

  • Romeo and Juliet
    Romeo and Juliet
    Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

    , February 1932, produced by A. R. Whatmore
    A. R. Whatmore
    A. R. Whatmore was a British actor, playwright and producer of plays.- Early life :Arthur Reginald Whatmore was born on 30 May 1889 at Much Marcle in Herefordshire, the son of Charles Arthur Whatmore and his wife Emma...

    , with Sebastian Shaw
    Sebastian Shaw (actor)
    Sebastian Lewis Shaw was an English actor, director, novelist, playwright and poet. During his 65-year career, Shaw appeared in dozens of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions....

     as Romeo, Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....

     as Mercutio and George Coulouris
    George Coulouris
    George Coulouris was a prominent English film and stage actor.-Early life:Coulouris was born in Manchester, England, the son of Abigail and Nicholas Coulouris, a merchant of Greek origin. He was brought up both in Manchester and nearby Urmston and was educated at Manchester Grammar School...

     as Tybalt

The Ronald Adam years

Control than passed to Ronald Adam
Ronald Adam (actor)
Ronald Adam OBE , born Ronald George Hinings Adams, was a British RAF officer, an actor on stage and screen and a successful theatre manager.-Early life:...

 (also known as Ronald Adams), who remained at the helm until 1939. During that time he made over 150 new productions and revivals, of which over thirty were then transferred to various theatres in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

. The Embassy school of acting was opened in the theatre in 1932. Some of the more notable productions at the theatre were:
  • Miracle at Verdun by Hans Chlumberg (translated by Edward Crankshaw
    Edward Crankshaw
    Edward Crankshaw , was a British writer, translator and commentator on Soviet affairs.Born in London, Crankshaw was educated in the Nonconformist public school, Bishop's Stortford College, Hertfordshire, England. He started working as a journalist for a few months at The Times...

    ), September 1932, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Derrick de Marney
    Derrick De Marney
    Derrick De Marney was an English stage and film actor and producer, of French and Irish ancestry.-Actor:On the London stage from 1922 and films from 1928...

    , George Howe
    George Howe (actor)
    George Winchester Howe was an English actor and comedian who appeared in numerous stage, film and television roles.-External links:*...

    , Alan Wheatley
    Alan Wheatley
    Alan Wheatley was a radio announcer who turned to stage and screen acting in the 1930s and was much seen in British films, being a television actor during the black and white era....

    . The production was then transferred to the Comedy.
  • Ten Minute Alibi (premiere), by Anthony Armstrong
    Anthony Armstrong (writer)
    George Anthony Armstrong Willis was an Anglo-Canadian writer, dramatist and essayist. He was the son of George Hughlings Armstrong Willis, R. N. and Adela Emma Temple Frere; although his parents were both English, he was born in Esquimalt, British Columbia as a consequence of his father's career...

    , January 1933, with Robert Douglas
    Robert Douglas (actor)
    Robert Douglas was born as Robert Douglas Finlayson in Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire. He was a successful stage and film actor, a television director and producer....

     and Celia Johnson
    Celia Johnson
    Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress.She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter , for which she received a nomination for the...

    . The production then transferred to the Haymarket
    Haymarket Theatre
    The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...

    .
  • The Glass Wall (premiere), by E. M. Delafield
    E. M. Delafield
    Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture , commonly known as E. M. Delafield, was a prolific English author. She is best-known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly in a...

    , February 1933, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Max Adrian
    Max Adrian
    Max Adrian was a Northern Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre....

  • All God's Chillun Got Wings
    All God's Chillun Got Wings (play)
    All God's Chillun Got Wings was a 1924 play by Eugene O'Neill about miscegenation.Paul Robeson performed in the premiere, in which he portrayed the black husband of an abusive white woman who, resenting her husband's skin colour, destroys his promising career as a lawyer.-Performances:Trish Van...

    , March 1933, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Paul Robeson
    Paul Robeson
    Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

     and Flora Robson
    Flora Robson
    Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

  • Sometimes Even Now (premiere), by Warren Chetham-Strode
    Warren Chetham-Strode
    Reginald Warren Chetham-Strode MC, was an English author and playwright. He wrote several plays including The Guinea Pig which was turned into a movie in 1948...

    , May 1933, with Jack Hawkins
    Jack Hawkins
    Colonel John Edward "Jack" Hawkins CBE was an English actor of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.-Career:Hawkins was born at Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, Middlesex, the son of master builder Thomas George Hawkins and his wife, Phoebe née Goodman. The youngest of four children in a close-knit family,...

    , Celia Johnson
    Celia Johnson
    Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress.She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter , for which she received a nomination for the...

    , Marie Lohr
    Marie Lohr
    Marie Lohr was an Australian film and stage actress.-Biography:Marie Löhr was born in Sydney to Lewis J. Löhr, treasurer of the Melbourne opera house, and his wife, the English actress Kate Bishop...

  • Napoleon, September 1934, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Edward Chapman
    Edward Chapman (actor)
    Edward Chapman was an English actor who starred in many films and television programmes, but is chiefly remembered as "Mr. Wilfred Grimsdale", the officious superior and comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in many of his films from the late 1950s and 1960s.Chapman was born in...

    , John Clements
    John Clements
    Sir John Selby Clements, CBE was an English actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film.Clements attended St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge University then worked with Nigel Playfair and afterwards spent a few years in Ben Greet's Shakespearean Company. He made...

    , Violet Farebrother
    Violet Farebrother
    Violet Farebrother was an English film actress. She appeared in 25 films between 1911 and 1965, including three films directed by Alfred Hitchcock...

    , Eric Portman
    Eric Portman
    Eric Portman was a distinguished English stage and film actor...

    , Margaret Rawlings
    Margaret Rawlings
    Margaret Rawlings was a distinguished English stage actress, born in Osaka, Japan, daughter of the Rev George William Rawlings and his wife Lilian . She died two weeks three days before her 90th birthday....

  • The Dominant Sex (premiere), by Michael Egan, December 1934, with Diana Churchill
    Diana Churchill (actress)
    Diana Churchill was an English film and stage actress.She was born Diana Josephine Churchill in Wembley, Middlesex on 21 August 1913. On leaving school she begged her father to let her train for the stage...

    , Richard Bird
    Richard Bird (actor)
    Richard Bird was an actor and director of stage and screen.He was born George Bird and took the stage name Richard Bird as during his early acting career he was knicknamed "Dickie" by his colleagues....

    , René Ray. The production then transferred to the Shaftesbury
    Original Shaftesbury Theatre
    The Original Shaftesbury Theatre was a theatre in central London between 1888 and 1941. It was built by John Lancaster for his wife, Ellen Wallis, a well-known Shakespearean actress. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps and built by Messrs...

    .
  • Stevedore, May 1935, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Paul Robeson
    Paul Robeson
    Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

     and Robert Adams
    Robert Adams (actor)
    Robert Adams was a British actor of stage and screen. He was the founder and director of the Negro Repertory Arts Theatre, one of the first professional black theatre companies in Britain.-Early years:...

  • This Desirable Residence, by A. R. Rawlinson, May 1935, with Coral Browne
    Coral Browne
    Coral Browne was an Australian-American stage and screen actress.-Career:Coral Edith Brown was the only daughter of a restaurant-owner. She and her two brothers were raised in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, where she studied at the National Gallery Art School...

  • Close Quarters (premiere), by W. O. Somin and Gilbert Lennox, June 1935, with Oskar Homolka (London debut), Flora Robson
    Flora Robson
    Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

     The production then transferred to the Haymarket
    Haymarket Theatre
    The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...

    .
  • Professor Bernhardi
    Professor Bernhardi
    Professor Bernhardi is one of the best known plays written by the Viennese dramatist, short story writer and novelist Arthur Schnitzler...

    , June 1936, with Abraham Sofaer
    Abraham Sofaer
    Abraham Sofaer was a stage actor of Burmese-Jewish descent who became a familiar supporting player on film and television in his later years. He was born in Rangoon, Burma...

     in title role and Max Adrian
    Max Adrian
    Max Adrian was a Northern Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre....

    , Noel Howlett
    Noel Howlett
    Noel Howlett was an English actor, principally remembered as the incompetent headmaster, Morris Cromwell, in the ITV 1970s cult television programme Please Sir!...

     The production then transferred to the Phoenix
    Phoenix Theatre (London)
    The Phoenix Theatre is a West End theatre in the London Borough of Camden, located on Charing Cross Road . The entrance is in Phoenix Street....

    .
  • Judgment Day (London premiere), by Elmer Rice
    Elmer Rice
    Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...

    , May 1937, with Glynis Johns
    Glynis Johns
    Glynis Johns is a South African-born Welsh stage and film actress, dancer, pianist and singer . With a career spanning seven decades, Johns is often cited as the "complete actress", who happens to be a trained pianist and singer...

    , Catherine Lacey
    Catherine Lacey
    Catherine Lacey was an English actress who made her film debut in 1938 as the secretive nun who wears high heels in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes . She was an established stage character player before she was 30...

    , George Woodbridge
    George Woodbridge (actor)
    George Woodbridge was an English character actor in films and television from the 1930s to the 1970s...

     The production then transferred to the Strand
    Novello Theatre
    The Novello Theatre is a West End theatre on Aldwych, in the City of Westminster.-History:The theatre was built as one of a pair with the Aldwych Theatre on either side of the Waldorf Hotel, both being designed by W. G. R. Sprague. The theatre opened as the Waldorf Theatre on 22 May 1905, and was...

    .
  • Three Set Out, by Philip Leaver, June 1937, directed by Margaret Webster
    Margaret Webster
    Margaret Webster was an American-born theater actress, producer and director. Through her parents, she held dual US/UK citizenship.-Career:...

    , with Constance Cummings
    Constance Cummings
    Constance Cummings, CBE was an American-born British actress, known for her work on both screen and stage.Born Constance Halverstadt in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Dallas Vernon Halverstadt, a lawyer, and his wife, Kate Logan Cummings, a concert soprano. she began as a stage actress,...

     and Michael Redgrave
    Michael Redgrave
    Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...

  • Profit and Loss, May 1938, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Mabel Love
    Mabel Love
    Mabel Love , was a British dancer and stage actress. She was considered to be one of the great stage beauties of her age, and her career spanned the late Victorian era and Edwardian period...

     (final appearance)
  • Julius Caesar
    Julius Caesar (play)
    The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...

    , November 1939, in modern dress, with Joseph O'Conor
    Joseph O'Conor
    Joseph O'Conor was an Anglo-Irish actor and playwright.- Early years :O'Conor was born in Dublin on 14 February 1916, the son of Frances and Daniel O'Conor. His family moved to London, where he attended the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, the University of London and RADA...

     (debut), Peter Copley
    Peter Copley
    Peter Copley was a British television, film and stage actor.-Biography:Copley was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, son of the printmakers, John Copley and Ethel Gabain....

    , Hugh Griffith
    Hugh Griffith
    Hugh Emrys Griffith was a Welsh film, stage and television actor.-Early life:Griffith was born in Marianglas, Anglesey, Wales, the son of Mary and William Griffith. He was educated at Llangefni County School and attempted to gain entrance to university, but failed the English examination...

    , Eric Portman
    Eric Portman
    Eric Portman was a distinguished English stage and film actor...



Ronald Adam's own list of significant transfers in that period was Ten Minute Alibi, Close Quarters, The Dominant Sex, Professor Bernhardi
Professor Bernhardi
Professor Bernhardi is one of the best known plays written by the Viennese dramatist, short story writer and novelist Arthur Schnitzler...

, Judgment Day.

The postwar period

After war damage, the building was reopened in 1945, with a capacity of 678.
It was then run until 1954 by Anthony Hawtrey
Anthony Hawtrey
Anthony John Hawtrey was an English actor on stage and screen, and theatre director.-Life:He was born in Claygate, Surrey, on 22 January 1909, the illegitimate son of Sir Charles Hawtrey and Olive Morris. He was educated at Bradfield College, then studied for the stage under Bertha Moore...

.
  • Quality Street
    Quality Street (play)
    Quality Street is a comedy in four acts by J. M. Barrie, written before his more famous work Peter Pan. The story is about two sisters who start a school "for genteel children"....

    , February 1945, directed by Anthony Hawtrey
    Anthony Hawtrey
    Anthony John Hawtrey was an English actor on stage and screen, and theatre director.-Life:He was born in Claygate, Surrey, on 22 January 1909, the illegitimate son of Sir Charles Hawtrey and Olive Morris. He was educated at Bradfield College, then studied for the stage under Bertha Moore...

    , with Joyce Blair
    Joyce Blair
    Joyce Blair was an English actress and dancer. She was the sister of Lionel Blair, with whom she often performed...

     (debut, aged 13), Ursula Howells
    Ursula Howells
    Ursula Howells was an English actress whose elegant presence kept her much in demand for roles in film and television....

     (London debut), Geoffrey Toone
    Geoffrey Toone
    Geoffrey Toone was an Irish-born character actor.Most of Toone's film roles after the 1930s were in supporting parts, usually as authority figures, though he did play the lead character in the Hammer Films production The Terror of the Tongs in 1961Toone was born in Dublin, Ireland to English...

    , Bryan Forbes
    Bryan Forbes
    Bryan Forbes, CBE is an English film director, actor and writer.-Career:Bryan Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke on 22 July 1926 in Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, West Ham, Essex , and grew up at 43 Cranmer Road, Forest Gate, West Ham, Essex .Forbes trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of...

    , Gwendoline Watford
    Gwen Watford
    Gwendoline "Gwen" Watford was an English film, stage, and television actress. She married actor Richard Bebb in 1952....

    , Linden Travers
    Linden Travers
    -Life and career:Travers was born Florence Lindon-Travers in Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland, the daughter of Florence and William Halton Lindon-Travers. She was the elder sister of Bill Travers, and attended La Sagesse. She made her first stage appearance at the Newcastle Playhouse in 1933...

  • Myself a Stranger, August 1945, with Jack Allen
    Jack Allen (actor)
    Jack Allen was a British film, theatre and television actor.He made his stage debut in 1931 at The Liverpool Playhouse, appearing in The Swan and had a long theatrical career which lasted until 1980, when he appeared at The Old Vic in a production of The Merchant of Venice.He made his film debut...

    , Hugh Burden
    Hugh Burden
    Hugh Burden was an English actor and playwright.He was the son of a colonial official and was educated at Beaumont College and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and RADA...

    , Cecil Ramage
  • Fit for Heroes, September 1945, directed by Henry Kendall
    Henry Kendall (actor)
    Henry Kendall, born in London on 28 May 1897 was an English stage and film actor, theatre director and an immaculately stylish revue artiste. He died on 9 June 1962.- Early life :...

    , with Irene Vanbrugh
    Irene Vanbrugh
    Dame Irene Vanbrugh DBE , née Barnes, was an English actress. The daughter of a clergyman, Vanbrugh followed her elder sister Violet into the theatrical profession, and sustained a career for more than 50 years....

    , Helen Cherry
    Helen Cherry
    Helen Cherry was an English stage and film actress.-Career:Helen Mary Cherry was born at Thurgarton, Worsley, Lancashire, the daughter of John William Cherry, a works manager then serving as a captain in the 45th Provisional Battalion, and his wife, Annie Nall.Educated in Harrogate, Helen Cherry...

    , Jack Allen
    Jack Allen (actor)
    Jack Allen was a British film, theatre and television actor.He made his stage debut in 1931 at The Liverpool Playhouse, appearing in The Swan and had a long theatrical career which lasted until 1980, when he appeared at The Old Vic in a production of The Merchant of Venice.He made his film debut...

    , Raymond Lovell
    Raymond Lovell
    Raymond Lovell was a Canadian-born film actor who performed in British produced films. He mainly played supporting roles, and was often seen as slightly pompous characters...

    , Olaf Pooley
    Olaf Pooley
    Olaf Pooley is a British actor and writer born February 2, 1916, in Parkstone, Poole, Dorset, England, of an English father and Danish mother.Pooley married the actress Irlin Hall in 1946 and together they had a daughter, the actress Kirstie Pooley and son comedian Seyton Pooley...

  • The Gambler
    The Gambler (novel)
    The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. The novella reflects Dostoyevsky's own addiction to roulette, which was in more ways than one the inspiration for the book: Dostoyevsky completed the novella under a...

    , adapted by Norman Ginsbury from Dostoevsky, November 1945, directed by Sebastian Shaw
    Sebastian Shaw (actor)
    Sebastian Lewis Shaw was an English actor, director, novelist, playwright and poet. During his 65-year career, Shaw appeared in dozens of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions....

    , with Hugh Burden
    Hugh Burden
    Hugh Burden was an English actor and playwright.He was the son of a colonial official and was educated at Beaumont College and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and RADA...

    , Ferdy Mayne
    Ferdy Mayne
    -Early life:He was born Ferdinand Philip Mayer-Horckel, in Mainz, Germany. His German father was the Judge of Mayence, and his half-English mother gave singing lessons. Because his family was Jewish, he was sent to England to protect him from the Nazis, and he stayed with his aunt, the photographer...

    , Gwendoline Watford
    Gwen Watford
    Gwendoline "Gwen" Watford was an English film, stage, and television actress. She married actor Richard Bebb in 1952....

  • Red Roses for Me
    Red Roses for Me (play)
    Red Roses for Me is a four-act play written by Irish playwright Seán O'Casey which premiered at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin in 1943. The story is set against the backdrop of the Dublin Lockout of 1913, events in which O'Casey himself had participated....

    , by Seán O'Casey
    Seán O'Casey
    Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...

    , February 1946, with Kieron O'Hanrahan
    Kieron Moore
    Kieron Moore was an Irish film and television actor whose career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s...

    , Eddie Byrne
    Eddie Byrne
    Eddie Byrne was an Irish actor. Outside Ireland he is probably best known for his minor role as General Vanden Willard in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but fans of cult sci-fi might also remember him as the skeptical Inspector Mulrooney in The Mummy and as the kindly Dr. Reginald Landers in...

  • National velvet 1946
  • Sense and sensibility 1946
  • Mrs Dane's Defence
    Mrs Dane's Defence
    Mrs. Dane's Defence is a society play in four acts by the British playwright Henry Arthur Jones.-First Performance:...

    , 1946, with Mary Ellis
    Mary Ellis
    Mary Ellis was a long-lived star of the British stage best known for her roles in the genre of musical theatre. After appearing with the Metropolitan Opera beginning in 1918, later appearing opposite Enrico Caruso, she acted on Broadway, creating the title role in Rose Marie...

  • Portrait of Hickory, April 1948 with Judy Campbell
    Judy Campbell
    Judy Campbell was an English light comedy actress and occasional playwright, Noël Coward's muse. Her daughter is the actor and singer Jane Birkin, her son the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin, and among her grandchildren are the actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, the poet Anno...

  • Miranda
    Miranda (1948 film)
    Miranda is a 1948 British comedy film, directed by Ken Annakin and written by Peter Blackmore, who also wrote the play of the same name from which the film was adapted. Denis Waldock provided additional dialogue. A light comedy, the film is about a beautiful and playful mermaid played by Glynis...

    , June 1947, directed by Richard Bird
    Richard Bird (actor)
    Richard Bird was an actor and director of stage and screen.He was born George Bird and took the stage name Richard Bird as during his early acting career he was knicknamed "Dickie" by his colleagues....

    , with Nora Swinburne
    Nora Swinburne
    Nora Swinburne was a British actress, born Leonora Mary Johnson in Bath, Somerset, daughter of Henry Swinburne Johnson and his wife Leonora Tamar ....

    , Ronald Ward
    Ronald Ward
    Ronald Ward was a British actor who appeared in more than twenty British films between 1931 and 1956. He was born in Eastbourne in 1901 as Ronald William Ward, and made his screen debut in the 1931 film Alibi...

    , Diane Hart
    Diane Hart
    Diane Hart was an English actress in both movies and the theater in the West End Theater of London, political campaigner and inventor. For 12 years she was married to the television broadcaster Kenneth MacLeod before separating in 1968...

  • The Father (Strindberg), November 1948 with Michael Redgrave
    Michael Redgrave
    Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...

  • A Woman in Love ("Amoureuse"), April 1949, adapted and directed by Michael Redgrave
    Michael Redgrave
    Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...

    , with Margaret Rawlings
    Margaret Rawlings
    Margaret Rawlings was a distinguished English stage actress, born in Osaka, Japan, daughter of the Rev George William Rawlings and his wife Lilian . She died two weeks three days before her 90th birthday....

  • On Monday Next (premiere), by Philip King
    Philip King (playwright)
    Philip King, a British playwright and actor, was born in Yorkshire in 1904. He is best known as the author of the farce See How They Run . He lived in Brighton and many of his plays were first produced in nearby Worthing. He continued to act throughout his writing career, often appearing in his...

    , April 1949, with Henry Kendall
    Henry Kendall (actor)
    Henry Kendall, born in London on 28 May 1897 was an English stage and film actor, theatre director and an immaculately stylish revue artiste. He died on 9 June 1962.- Early life :...

    , directed by him and Shaun Sutton
    Shaun Sutton
    Shaun Alfred Graham Sutton OBE was an English television writer, director, producer and executive, who worked in the medium for nearly forty years from the 1950s to the 1990s...

    , also with Leslie Phillips
    Leslie Phillips
    Leslie Samuel Phillips, CBE is an English actor with a highly recognisable upper class accent. Originally known for his work as a comedy actor, Phillips subsequently made the transition to character roles.-Early life:...

  • Othello
    Othello
    The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

    , July 1949, produced by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Michael Aldridge
    Michael Aldridge
    Michael William ffolliott Aldridge was an English actor. While it was his role as Seymour in the television series Last of the Summer Wine which made him widely recognised, his long career as a successful character actor on stage and screen dated back to the 1930s.-Early life:The son of Dr...

     in title role, and Peter Wyngarde
    Peter Wyngarde
    Peter Paul Wyngarde is an Anglo-French actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two British television series in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Department S and Jason King .-Biography:He was born Cyril Goldbert in Marseilles, France, the...

    , Maxine Audley
    Maxine Audley
    Maxine Audley was an English theatre and film actress. She made her professional stage debut in July 1940 at the Open Air Theatre. Throughout her career, Audley performed with both the Old Vic company and the Royal Shakespeare Company multiple times...

  • Caro William
    Caro William
    Caro William is a play by William Douglas-Home which premiered at the Embassy Theatre in 1952. The cast included Robert Shaw as Mr. George Lamb, Rachel Gurney as Mrs. George Lamb and Freda Gaye as Lady Melbourne. This play was the London stage acting debut of Robert Shaw....

    premiere 1952 with Robert Shaw
    Robert Shaw (actor)
    Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...

     (London debut), Rachel Gurney
    Rachel Gurney
    Rachel Gurney was an English actress. She began her career in the theatre towards the end of World War II and then expanded into television and film in the 1950s. She remained active mostly in television and theatre work through the early 1990s...

  • The Merchant of Yonkers
    The Merchant of Yonkers
    The Merchant of Yonkers is a play by Thornton Wilder.Hilary Daniels 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into a full-length play entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842...

    , 1952, directed by André van Gyseghem
    Andre Van Gyseghem
    André van Gyseghem was an English actor and theatre director who also appeared in many British television programmes.- Early life :...

    , with Robert Eddison
    Robert Eddison
    Robert Eddison was a British actor, who is probably most widely remembered in the role of the Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...

    , Raymond Lovell
    Raymond Lovell
    Raymond Lovell was a Canadian-born film actor who performed in British produced films. He mainly played supporting roles, and was often seen as slightly pompous characters...

    , Sophie Stewart
    Sophie Stewart
    Sophie Stewart was a British actress. She was born in Crieff, Perthshire on 5 March 1908. Died 1977. In 1937 she starred in Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel as Lady Blakeney.She was married to the actor Ellis Irving.-Selected filmography:...

    , Alfie Bass
    Alfie Bass
    Alfred Bass was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; their parents had fled persecution in Russia...

    , Esma Cannon
    Esma Cannon
    Esma Ellen Charlotte Cannon was a diminutive Australian-born character actress, who moved to England in the early 1930s.-Career:...

    , Peter Baylis, Nigel Hawthorne
    Nigel Hawthorne
    Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne, CBE was an English actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the 1980s sitcom Yes Minister and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. For this role he won four BAFTA Awards during the 1980s in the...

  • Uranium 235, by Ewan MacColl
    Ewan MacColl
    Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...

    , May 1952, produced by Joan Littlewood
    Joan Littlewood
    Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...

     with Harry H. Corbett
    Harry H. Corbett
    Harry H. Corbett OBE was an English actor.Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s...

    , George A. Cooper
    George A. Cooper
    George A. Cooper is an English actor.One of his best-known roles was as the caretaker Mr. Griffiths in the long-running children's TV series Grange Hill...

    , Avis Bunnage
    Avis Bunnage
    Avis Bunnage was a British actress of film, stage and television.She attended Manley Park Municipal School and Chorlton Central School in Manchester. She worked as a secretary and a nursery teacher before deciding to become an actress...

  • Hamlet
    Hamlet
    The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

    , March 1953 with Laurence Payne
    Laurence Payne
    Laurence Payne was an English actor and novelist.-Early life:Laurence Stanley Payne was born in London. His father died when he was three years old, and he and his elder brother and sister were brought up in by their mother, a Wesleyan Methodist in Wood Green, London...

     in title role, George Coulouris
    George Coulouris
    George Coulouris was a prominent English film and stage actor.-Early life:Coulouris was born in Manchester, England, the son of Abigail and Nicholas Coulouris, a merchant of Greek origin. He was brought up both in Manchester and nearby Urmston and was educated at Manchester Grammar School...

    , Christine Finn
    Christine Finn
    Christine Finn was a British actress, known primarily for her work for the Thunderbirds television series of the 1960s, and the 1958–59 television serial Quatermass and the Pit...

  • Twelfth Night 1953 with George Coulouris
    George Coulouris
    George Coulouris was a prominent English film and stage actor.-Early life:Coulouris was born in Manchester, England, the son of Abigail and Nicholas Coulouris, a merchant of Greek origin. He was brought up both in Manchester and nearby Urmston and was educated at Manchester Grammar School...

    , Christine Finn
    Christine Finn
    Christine Finn was a British actress, known primarily for her work for the Thunderbirds television series of the 1960s, and the 1958–59 television serial Quatermass and the Pit...

  • The Boy Friend
    The Boy Friend
    The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until it was surpassed by Salad Days...

     (premiere for full version) 1953 with Hugh Paddick
    Hugh Paddick
    Hugh William Paddick was an English actor, whose most notable role was in the 1960s BBC radio show Round the Horne in sketches such as Charles and Fiona and Julian and Sandy...



In 1953 it was sold to Sidney Bernstein with management by screen-writer and playwright Wolf Mankowitz
Wolf Mankowitz
Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.-Early life:...

.
  • The Bespoke Overcoat 1954
  • The Lion in the Lighthouse, June 1955 with Henry Kendall (actor)
    Henry Kendall (actor)
    Henry Kendall, born in London on 28 May 1897 was an English stage and film actor, theatre director and an immaculately stylish revue artiste. He died on 9 June 1962.- Early life :...

  • The World of Sholem Aleichem ca. 1955
  • The Boychik ca. 1956

Central School

It was sold to the Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...

 in 1956.
  • Mad Forest
    Mad Forest
    Mad Forest: A Play from Romania is a play by English playwright Caryl Churchill. The three acts occur, respectively, shortly before, during, and shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989...

    (premiere) 1990

General reference


External links

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