Great War Theatre

Address: London Borough of Camden, London, UK

Performances at this Theatre

Date Script Type
N/A My wife from London Unknown
22 Feb 1915 Among the Missing Professional
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Ref: Allardyce Nicoll English Drama 1900-1930 The Beginnings of the Modern Period London, 1973 Cambridge University Press ISBN: 0 521 08416 4 The Stage Thursday 25 February 1915 p18 THE BEDFORD “Among the Missing” On Monday evening, February 22, 1915, was presented here a dramatic sketch, in one scene, by F.G. Ingleby, entitled:- Among the Missing. The Husband ……………………………………….Mr. David Blair The Wife ………………………………………………Miss Gaby Fay The Friend ………………………………Mr. Reginald J. Turner Scene. – A Drawing-room. Time. – An evening in 1918 Among the Missing, which is a tense and vivid little piece, touching upon a domestic tragedy which might well happen in warlike times such as these, but which has a pleasant surprise ending, was first seen at Islington a week or two ago. It is being received by large audiences at the Bedford this week with all that silent attention which denotes a certain grip as far as subject is concerned, but it will be vastly improved when those responsible for its interpretation take it in a less emphatic and more every-day fashion, although of course, they are not dealing with an every-day matter. Their playing is at present certainly not without decided good qualities, but they would appear to be obsessed by the surprise which is to come at the finish, and much dramatic effect is lost thereby. One has dealt first with the acting, because Among the Missing is essentially a playlet in which a vast deal depends upon its interpretation, and because a little more care exercised in that direction should ensure its inclusion in many future bills. Briefly stated, it is the tragedy, r supposed tragedy. of a husband, who after having been at this War and reported missing, returns home after three years to find that his wife has married his best friend, and the horror of the situation is well conveyed – if with scarcely enough sympathy, perhaps, for the friend. The wife determines that she will live alone, and after a very strong scene between the two men, the friend is left to his remorse. It is then that the surprise comes, for he falls asleep and awakens to find it all a dream, the curtain falling on the happy reunion of all three. With the improvement already suggested, Among the Missing should do well; and, while improvements are being considered, a little matter with regard to period should be set right. It is decidedly not the thing to convey the quite unwarranted impression that the War is to last until 1918, as the piece does at present. The scene between the two men is capital, and drew spontaneous applause for Messrs. David Blair and Reginald J. Turner on the occasion of our visit. Miss Gaby Fay puts in some acceptable acting as the wife.
17 Jan 1916 The Affair of Room 14 Unknown
1 May 1916 Money For Nothing Professional
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Performed from 1 to 6 May 1916.
24 Jul 1916 Tricked Unknown
5 Aug 1918 The East African Unknown
30 May 1949 The Inca Of Perusalem Professional
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The Inca of Perusalem was given seven performances with Candida at the Bedford Theatre in Camden Town, London from 30 May 1949, under the management of Donald Wolfit and produced by Douglas Seale. The cast was: Oliver Burt (Archdeacon), Elizabeth Kentish (Ermyntrude), John Shard (hotel manager), Irene Ash (the princess), Morris Fishman (waiter), James Otaway (the Inca); also Douglas Seale (producer) (Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, Theatrical Companion to Shaw (London: Rockliff, 1954), p. 174). ‘Following Donald Wolfit’s successful season, comes an excellent company with Bernard Shaw plays, admirably produced … Preceding [Candida] is The Inca of Perusalem, a Shavian trifle World War I, on its merits hardly worth exhuming’ (Daily Herald, 31 May 1949). “The Inca of Perusalem,” made an attractive curtain raiser to “Candida” at the Bedford last night. The character of the Inca who is attracted to a princess’s maid is a burlesque of the Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the play, written at the time of the 1914 war, very much a French pièce d’occasion whose significance is inevitably rather lost on the younger generation. To-day it seems little more than s sketch for a theme to be developed later in “The Apple Cart” – the relationship between King and commoner, the one a human being and the other an attractive woman. Still it has independent and farcical merits typically Shavian, even to the possession of a pacifistic peroration' (Daily Telegraph, 31 May 1949). ‘In the second week of the Shaw season at the Bedford ... Candida is preceded by the rarely performed one-act play, The Inca of Perusalem. This is Mr. Shaw at his most vitriolic, firing broadsides at the follies of man. Covering the field of Europe in 1914-18, any strictly topical significance is gone, but the author’s merciless volleys of derision still retain much which is apt and even more which is amusing' (The Stage, 2 June 1949). ‘A revival of Candida was the main piece; for collectors the occasion rested upon the first fifty minutes – that rarity, the Inca of Perusalem, one of Shae’s playlets from the first World War, or dewdrops from the lion’s mane. This conversation was never more than a topical joke; its burlesque of the Kaiser could have meant little to the younger Shavians who clustered at the Bedford. Still, it strikes a good vein of nonsense' (Observer, 5 June 1949).