It starred Clive Currie, Laura La Plante, and Diana Beaumont and ran for 192 performances..

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

The front cover (white with red and black titles) and textblock are bright and clean, except rusted staples.
007044

Price: 6.38 GBP

The programme was divided into four parts: "Les Sylphides" with music by Frederic Chopin, and choreography by Michael Fokine; "The Cow That Spoke" based on a Jugo-Slav folk play, choreographed by J. Crandall, P. Thornton with traditional music orchestrated by Gordon Jacob; "Grand Divertissement"; and "Cracow Wedding" with music by T. Glinski and choreography by Cz. Konarski. Jan Cobel produced the show and Eric Chisholm directed the orchestra.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

This item is a bit edgeworn, and has the remnants of the price sticker.
008530

Price: 4.25 GBP

Maur (1891 - 1964) was a Hungarian actor. He appeared in 44 films between 1919 and 1954, according to wikipedia. Recruited by the Max Reinhardt Theatres in Berlin, according to the libraries dot psu dot edu site, he gave stage, screen, and radio performances throughout Europe, and was also active in the Jewish theater. Maur moved to England in 1936 to appear in the A. Korda film "Rembrandt" and remained there with his wife, Czechoslavakian actress Anna Ascher (stage-name Annie Arden). Continuing his career as a character actor into the 1950s.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

This item is in very good condition except for slight edgewear and Roxburgh's inked notation that this is "touring" production.
008514

Price: 6.38 GBP

Reid, (1919 - 1996) was a British actress of stage and screen. Her first professional performances were in a revue in the summer season at Bridlington in 1936. Although she had no formal training she was able to join London's Royal National Theatre as a comedy actress. Her first big success came in the BBC radio show "Educating Archie" as naughty schoolgirl, Monica, wikipedia says.

She reprised her Tony Award-winning performance of a lesbian soap opera star in The Killing of Sister George for the screen version and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Drama.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

This item is in very good condition except for slight edgewear and Roxburgh's inked notation that this is a "touring" production.
008513

Price: 6.38 GBP

Smith was a novelist and playwright. As WWI was breaking out in 1914, Smith entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, She was unsuccessful as an actress. She authored her first play, "Autumn Crocus", in 1931 under the pseudonym C.L. Anthony. It was a success and allowed her to spend most of her years as a writer living in a townhouse in London, Smith is perhaps best known for her novel "The Hundred and One Dalmatians"

Nares had a lengthy stage and screen career and, for most of the 1920s, was Britain's favourite matinée idol and silent film star. In 1910, after a year's acting training, he was playing bit parts in West End productions, including the St. James’s Theatre and the Pinero’s Mid Channel. Over the next few years, he performed with many of the stars of the era including Beerbohm Tree, Constance Collier and Marion Terry. Nares starred in popular West End shows, almost without pause, until 1926, when he set off with his own company for a tour of South Africa. A year or two later, he continued his West End career through the 1930s, starring in this play and in "Call it a Day" at the Globe Theatre the next year. Cushing, was probably best known for his many appearances in Hammer horror Films, often appearing opposite his close friend, Christopher Lee. This was one of his few stage roles and one of his first professional acting gigs. Cushing left his first job, as a surveyor's assistant, to take up a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After working in repertory theatre, he left for Hollywood in 1939, but returned in 1941 after roles in several films. His first major film part was as Osric in Hamlet (1948) with Laurence Olivier. In the 1950s he most notably appeared as Winston Smith in the BBC's 1954 adaptation of the Orwell novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four".

Bruce was an actress, who was perhaps best-known for her television work. She had been a stripper before taking up acting. Bruce started on stage as a teenage chorus girl. She was with the Birmingham Repertory Company from 1936-39 and a long-time actress with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Bruce played the memorable role of P. G. Wodehouse's character Aunt Dahlia in the 1990s production of Jeeves and Wooster with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

The front cover os this single sheet of A4 folded and printed as 4 pages, is white with red globe motif and titles. It's well-creased and worn with several closed tears.
007074

Price: 6.38 GBP

The movie had quite a pedigree. It began life as a stageplay at His Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarked in 1916 and ran and ran and ran, racking up 2,238 performances by the time it closed in 1921. During the run of the play, four men and one donkey had never missed even a single performance. It premiered in 1917 at New York's Manhattan Opera House and starred Tyrone Power, according to the moderntheatre dot info site. It ran for 208 performances. This is very successful by New York standards the moderntheatre dot info site notes.

The show starred George Robey, Anna May Wong, and Fritz Kortner. Its cast included John Garrick, Pearl Argyle, Jetsam, Denis Hoy, Sydney Fairbrother, Laurence Hanray, Frank Cochrane, Thelma Tuson, and Kyoshi Takase.

Robey (1869 - 1954) was an English music hall comedian and star. He was marketed as the "Prime Minister of Mirth", according to wikipedia. His London début was made at the Royal Aquarium, as assistant to Professor Kennedy, a burlesque mesmerist, in 1891. In this act he sang songs, pretending to be under hypnosis. He was soon performing in his own act, wikipedia continues, and was booked at the Oxford Music Hall in June 1891, aged 21.

Like many of his time, Robey's act consisted of patter and song, with elaborate stage costumes, often appearing in drag. He was, according to wikipedia, renowned for his double entendres, and ordering his audience to "Desist" and "Kindly temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve". Naturally, these exhortations had the opposite effect. During World War I he was known for his enthusiastic participation in recruitment drives for the army. In one theatre he promised "a shiny florin for every recruit who signs on tonight" wikipedia continues. He raised over £500,000 for war charities and at the end of the war he was offered a knighthood for his services, but declined, accepting a CBE.

Wong (1905 - 1961) was the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star. according to wikipedia. Her long and varied career spanned both silent and sound film, television, stage, and radio. Wong became infatuated with the movies and began acting in films at an early age. During the silent film era, she acted in "The Toll of the Sea", one of the first movies made in colour and Douglas Fairbanks' "The Thief of Bagdad", wikipedia continues, and Wong became a fashion icon, achieving international stardom by 1924.

Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, she left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them "Piccadilly" in 1929. She spent the early 1930s traveling between the US and Europe for film and stage work and was featured in films of the early sound era, such as "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931) and "Daughter of Shanghai" (1937), and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's "Shanghai Express" (1932), wikipedia explains.

Included in the magazine section is an essay on the record-making and record-breaking history of "Chu Chin Chow", the stageplay and movie. In the continuing series of mini-biographies of theatre people of the past the life of Thomas Doggett (ca. 1640 - 1721), the Irish actor is discusssed. Fay Wray (she of King Kong fame), Elissa Landi and Janice Jarrett are talked about in the "News of the Stars" column. A photo of a scene from Podrecca's Piscolimarionette players at the Royalty Theatre, a photo of Elsie Randolph and Fred Emney (in his stereotypical guise as the "posh fat bloke", usually gruff and invariably wearing a monocle) in a scene from "Mr Whittington" then at the London Hippodrome are published. Also included are the "Studio News", "Amateur Stage" and "London Streets: How They Got Their Names" and other columns.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

The cover is very slightly foxed and the staples are rusted but the textblock is bright.
008480

Price: 6.38 GBP

It starred Coward and Printemps and featuring: Heather Thatcher, Moya Nugent, Betty Shale, Maidie Andrews, Louis Hayward, George Sanders, Pat Worsley, Antony Brian, Sidney Grammer, Winifred Davis, Athole Stewart, Irene Browne, Elizabeth Corcoran, Tommy Hayes, Everley Gregg, Molly Lumley, Penrun Bannerman, Kim Peacock, Reginald Thurgood, William McGuigan, Evan Jones, Roy Hall, Betty Elburn, Shela Pattrick, Winifred Campbell, St. John Lauri, Alex Robertson, Claude Farrow, Leonard Michel, and Jean Barnes, Scenery and costumes were designed by G E Calthrop.

Printemps was a French singer and actress, who began dancing in revues at the Folies Bergère in Paris at age 13. She started in operetta, appearing in such works as "Les Contes de Perrault" in 1913 and "Le Poilu" in 1916. Her voice and stage presence made her a great star at a young age, appearing as a teenager with the greatest stars of the day, Maurice Chevalier and Mistinguett. She received international acclaim for her performance in this play. She continued performing on stage until she was well into her 60s.

Academy Award-winning stage, film and television actor, George Sanders, was only 28 when he appeared in this early role. After graduation from Brighton College, he worked at an advertising agency. It was there that the company secretary, an aspiring actress named Greer Garson, suggested a career in acting. His older brother, Tom Conway, was also an actor, to whom Sanders later handed over the role of "The Falcon". He made his British film debut in this year also and his American film debut two years later. In 1950 he gave his most widely recognised performance and achieved his greatest success as the acid-tongued, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role. He moved into TV in the 50s and was responsible for the successful series George Sanders Mystery Theatre and he played an upper crust English villain in a 1965 "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." episode. and portrayed "Mr. Freeze" in two episodes of the 1960s live-action Batman TV series.Sanders committed suicide in Castelldefels near Barcelona, Catalonia, leaving a note read: "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

The covers and text are clean and bright.
007076

Price: 6.38 GBP

Greene (1918 - 1985) was a noted English movie and television actor, born to a noted British theatrical clan. He appeared in more than 40 films, but was perhaps best known for the lead role in the long-running British TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood", which ran 143 episodes from 1955 to 1960.

He started his stage career as the spear carrier (no, really, he did, allegedly) in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in 1933. Greene joined the Jevan Brandon Repertory Company in 1936. He won accolades in the same year for his part in Terence Rattigan's "French Without Tears", which brought him to the attention of Alexander Korda and Darryl F. Zanuck, as a result of which, at 20, he joined 20th Century Fox.

One of his most notable roles was Sir Henry Baskerville in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Greene served in WWar II in the 27th Lancers, where he distinguished himself. He was relieved from duty in 1942 to appear in the British propaganda films "Flying Fortress" and "Unpublished Story". Greene was discharged in December 1944 and appeared in this stage play and "I Capture the Castle".

Rowbotham/Owen (1914 - 1999), was an English actor and songwriter. He is perhaps best known and most fondly remembered (by me at any rate) as "Compo" in the long-running TV sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine". He made his first film appearance in 1945 but only achieved lasting fame "Summer Wine". The series, starting in 1973, is today the world's longest-running comedy series.

During the 1960s, Owen had a successful second career as a songwriter, with compositions including the hit, "Marianne", recorded by Cliff Richard. He at this time also collaborated with songwriter Tony Russell on musical "The Matchgirls" about the London matchgirls strike of 1888. He starred as Spike Miligan's straight man in the West End hit "Son of Oblomov" in 1964.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

This item is a bit edgeworn, has an inked notation by Roxburgh about the play going to London's Adelphi Theatre several weeks later.
008518

Price: 8.50 GBP

It was a melodrama about a woman who locks another in the family burial vault to prevent her from marrying her brother. The play was supposed to open in London at The Globe but wound up at The Strand.

Thorndike was a British actress, and the sister of author Russell Thorndike. Her first public performance was as a pianist at age of 11, but a few years later had to give up the piano due to piano cramp. Her brother suggested she train as an actress. When only 21 she was offered her first professional contract, a tour of the USA with the actor-manager Ben Greet's company. She made her first stage appearance in Greet's 1904 production of Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor". She went on to tour the States in Shakespearean repertory for four years, playing more than 100 roles.

Nares had a lengthy stage and screen career and, for most of the 1920s, was Britain's favourite matinée idol and silent film star. In 1910, after a year's acting training, he was playing bit parts in West End productions, including the St. James’s Theatre and the Pinero’s Mid Channel. Over the next few years, he performed with many of the stars of the era including Beerbohm Tree, Constance Collier and Marion Terry. Nares starred in popular West End shows, almost without pause, until 1926, when he set off with his own company for a tour of South Africa. A year or two later, he continued his West End career through the 1930s, starring in this play and in "Call it a Day" at the Globe Theatre the next year.

The show also featured: Dora Barton, H. Worral-Thompson, Josephine Dent, Edwin Morton, Carol Goodner, Christine Silver, George Elton, Charles Lefeaux, Owen Nares, Sebastian Shaw and James Parish. McFadden appears to have only written one other play, the 1945 effort, "Signature" and an effort it must have been as it only lasted for two performances on Broadway.

Other features of the magazine include: the weekly Theatre Gossip column with a caricature of Sir Nigel Playfair and a photo of Lesley Wareing in the title role of Wycherley's "The Country Wife" at The Ambassadors, Leslie Banks and Gillian Lind as Clive and Mrs Clive in "Clive of India" at the Wyndham, and Nora Swinburne, Frank Allenby, Marie Tempest and Claude Horton in a scene from Harwood's play, "The Old Folks at Home" at the Queen's Theatre. The regular column, "The Stage of the Past" number 8, Colley Cibber, 1671-1757; the regular column, "The Stage of the Present", an interview with Patrick Waddington by Dorothy Drake; book and record reviews and several other features.

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

The covers and textblock are bright and clean but the staples are rusty and the cover is detached but present.
007643

Price: 8.50 GBP

Komisarjevsky later directed Bergner in the 1936 production of of J. M. Barrie's drama, "The Boy David" at His Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket. He was a leading Russian theatrical director and designer of the 20th century, particularly notable for his groundbreaking productions of plays by Chekhov and Shakespeare. He had the theatre in his blood, being the son of a high-profile opera singer who befriended Tchaikovsky, brother of Vera Komissarzhevskaya, a pre-eminent Russian actress of her generation. In 1909 he joined the theatrical revolutionary Nikolai Yevreinov in establishing a new stage company whose productions were intended to combine philosophy and romance. Interested in the idea of art synthesis, Komisarjevsky dreamed about the "theatre of all the arts". He maintained that "colors, lines, and music emphasize the acting, they can give the actor's words alternate meanings, they can pervert the episodes of the performance".

In 1910, Komisarjevsky set out on his own in Moscow, where he demonstrated his ideas in productions of "Faust" and "The Idiot". Following the 1917 Revolution, Komisarjevsky was named Director of the Bolshoi Theatre. But following's Lenin's declaration to "put theatres into coffins", Komisarjevsky emigrated to Britain. In the course of the following decade he amassed a formidable reputation for having introduced British audiences to Chekhov's plays. Here, during the 1930s, he was so eminent in so many areas of theatre that the "Encyclopædia Britannica" recognized him as "one of the most colourful figures of the European theatre".

Bergner, an Austrian-born actress, who began acting in Innsbruck at the age of 15. In Vienna, she worked as an artist's model, posing for sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, who fell in love with her. In 1923 she made her film debut in "Der Evangelimann". With the rise of Naziism, Bergner and her husband, both Jews, moved to London.

She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the film version of this play in 1935. In the film and play her character is named "Gemma Jones", (and a co-star is Griffith Jones, who names his daughter, the actress, Gemma Jones). Bergner temporarily returned to Germany in 1954, where she acted in movies and on the stage. She is considered by several critics to be the inspiration for the character of Margo Channing in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's classic film, "All About Eve".

Jones a film, stage and television actor who went on to appear in more than 50 productions at The Royal Shakespeare Company. He was also father of actors Gemma Jones and Nicholas Jones.

Peter Bull, was a British character actor. Some 25 years after appearing in this stage play, he appeared in the role for which he is probably best known, as the Russian Ambassador, Alexi de Sadesky, in "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" in 1963. He also appeared in "3 Worlds of Gulliver", "Tom Jones" and "Doctor Dolittle".

PROVENANCE: this item comes from the collection of H. W. Roxburgh of Liverpool, in whose extensive collection of theatrical ephemera this item was contained. It was purchased at Fellows and Sons Auction, Birmingham (UK) in Aug, 2007.

The front cover is worn and detached from the pamphlet and the rear cover is almost detached, held on only by the bottom staple, the staples are rusted. The textblock is lightly soiled with a cup ring on the first page of the show details.
007085

Price: 6.38 GBP