Robert Speaight was a British actor and writer, and the brother of George Speaight

George Speaight

George Victor Speaight was a theatre historian and the leading authority on 19th-century toy theatre.One of his brothers was the Shakespearean actor Robert Speaight, who paid for some of George's education at Haileybury....

 the puppeteer.

He was an early performer (from 1927) in radio plays. He came to prominence as Becket in the first production of T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

's Murder in the Cathedral

Murder in the Cathedral

Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...

. He went on to Shakespearean roles, and to direct.

He also wrote criticism and essays, works on the theatre and biography. He was a Roman Catholic convert, and biographer of Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...

 and Eric Gill

Eric Gill

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...

. In the case of Gill, a personal friend, he suppressed material about Gill's sexual interests, which would only come out in the 1989 biography by Fiona MacCarthy

Fiona MacCarthy

Fiona MacCarthy OBE is a British biographer and cultural historian best known for her studies of 19th and 20th century arts, crafts and design....

.

He married the Welsh actress Evelyn Bowen, with whom he had a son; they separated in 1939. Evelyn later married the celebrated Irish writer Frank O'Connor

Frank O'Connor

Frank O’Connor was an Irish author of over 150 works, best known for his short stories and memoirs.-Early life:...

.

Works

• Mutinous Wind (1932)
• The Lost Hero (1934) novel
• Legend of Helena Vaughan (1936) novel
• The Angel in the Mist (1936)
• St. Thomas of Canterbury (1938)
• Acting: its idea and tradition (1939)
• The Unbroken Heart (1939)
• Juvenile Drama. The History of the English Toy Theatre (1946)
• Since 1939 - Drama, the Novel, Poetry, Prose Literature (1949) with John Hayward
  John Davy Hayward
  John Davy Hayward was an English editor, critic, anthologist and bibliophile.-Early life:Hayward was educated at Gresham's School and in France before going up to King's College, Cambridge in 1923 to read English and modern languages...
  
  , Henry Reed, Stephen Spender
  Stephen Spender
  Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
  
   – earlier as pamphlet Drama Since 1939 (1947)
• George Eliot (1954)
• William Poel and the Elizabethan Revival (1954)
• The History of the English Puppet Theatre (1955)
• Nature in Shakespearian Tragedy (1955)
• Life of Hilaire Belloc (1957)
• Letters from Hilaire Belloc (1958) editor
• Christian Theatre (1960) volume 124 in the 20th Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism
• William Rothenstein: The Portrait of an Artist in His Time (1962)
• Ronald Knox: The Priest, The Writer (1965) with Thomas Corbishley
• The Life of Eric Gill (1966)
• Teilhard de Chardin: A Biography (1967)
• Teilhard de Chardin: Re-Mythologization.Three Papers (1970) with Robert V. Wilshire and J. V. Langmead Casserly
• Vanier : Soldier, Diplomat and Governor General : A Biography (1970) on Georges Vanier
  Georges Vanier
  Major-General Georges-Philéas Vanier was a Canadian soldier and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 19th since Canadian Confederation....
  
  
• The Property Basket. Recollections of a Divided Life (1970) autobiography
• A Bridges-Adams Letter Book (1971) editor
• Essays by Divers Hands Vol. XXXVII (1972) editor
• Shakespeare on the Stage; an Illustrated History of Shakespearian Performance (1973)
• Georges Bernanos: A Study of the Man and the Writer (1974)
• The companion guide to Burgundy (1975)
• Francois Mauriac: A Study of the Writer and the Man (1976)
• Shakespeare - the Man and his Achievement (1977)

Recordings

• Thomas a-Becket's Sermon from Murder in the Cathedral
  Murder in the Cathedral
  Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...
  
  (T. S. Eliot
  T. S. Eliot
  Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
  
  )
• Four Quartets
  Four Quartets
  Four Quartets is a set of four poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published individually over a six-year period. The first poem, "Burnt Norton", was written and published with a collection of his early works following the production of Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral...
  
  (T. S. Eliot)

Filmography

• London 1942 (1943) - narrator