The Bad Samaritan is a 1953 play by William Douglas Home. After a trial run at Bromley it was acquired by Alec L Rea & E P Clift's production company for West End theatre [1] at Sir Bronson Albery's Criterion. [2]
"The Bad Samaritan has at its heart distorted reiligious zeal." [4]
Catholic Veronica's deliberate seduction of young Anglican, Alan, provokes his revulsion such that he becomes a celibate Catholic priest. The crisis develops at his parental home, an Anglican deanery in an English Cathedral town, with Alan's father radically opposed to Catholicism. The stage is set by the presence of Alan's brother Brian, a war-damaged agnostic, and Jane, his former lover. [4]
Brian marries the pregnant and deserted Veronica. An epilogue set seven years later sees Veronica on holiday in Italy with her son. They visit a remote church where the priest is revealed as Alan, their reconciliation being a spiritual Kiss of Peace. [4]
The play ran for six months in London including the Criterion Theatre and the Duchess Theatre between April and October 1953. [5]
Repertory productions ran at the Little Theatre, Bristol between 1953 and 1954; Colchester Repertory Theatre, 1954; Salisbury Playhouse January 1956 and the Palace Avenue Theatre, Paignton in July 1957. [5]
In May 1954 the play was performed at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton with John Barron and Ursula O’Leary. [5]
A Times Review noted that the play used the Wilde formula with indifferent effect. [6]
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister. In writing the play, Williams drew on an earlier short story, as well as a screenplay he had written under the title of The Gentleman Caller.
Alan Walbridge Ladd was an American actor and film producer. Ladd found success in film in the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in films noir and Westerns. He was often paired with Veronica Lake in films noir, such as This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946). Whispering Smith (1948) was his first Western and color film, and Shane (1953) was noted for its contributions to the genre. Ladd also appeared in ten films with William Bendix.
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson, was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969.
The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre at Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has a seating capacity of 588.
Dame Virginia Anne McKenna is a British stage and screen actress, author, animal rights activist, and wildlife campaigner. She is best known for the films A Town Like Alice (1956), Carve Her Name with Pride (1958), Born Free (1966), and Ring of Bright Water (1969), as well as her work with the Born Free Foundation.
The Old Rep is a Grade II listed theatre, located on Station Street in Birmingham, England. When it was constructed in 1913, it was the United Kingdom's first ever purpose-built repertory theatre. When built, it became the permanent home for Barry Jackson's newly formed Birmingham Repertory Company, which began life in 1911, born from his amateur theatre group, The Pilgrim Players, founded in 1907. Jackson funded the construction of the theatre and established a professional, resident company there, which soon became a major powerhouse within the British theatre due to its innovative stagings of the works of both Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, resulting in some considering it to be Birmingham’s answer to The Old Vic.
Eva Le Gallienne was a British-born American stage actress, producer, director, translator, and author. A Broadway star by age 21, in 1926 she left Broadway behind to found the Civic Repertory Theatre, where she served as director, producer, and lead actress. Noted for her boldness and idealism, she was a pioneering figure in the American theater, setting the stage for the Off-Broadway and regional theater movements that swept the country later in the 20th century.
John Michael Terence Wellesley Denison was an English actor. He often appeared with his wife, Dulcie Gray, with whom he featured in several films and more than 100 West End theatre productions.
Can-Can is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and a book by Abe Burrows. The story concerns the showgirls of the Montmartre dance halls during the 1890s.
Robert James Gillespie is a British actor, director and writer. Notable acting credits include Keep It in the Family (1980), At the Earth's Core (1976) and Force 10 from Navarone (1978). Later, he appeared in Jimmy McGovern's Broken and Mike Leigh's film Peterloo about the Peterloo Massacre. The first volume of his autobiography, Are You Going To Do That Little Jump?, was published in 2017. A second volume, Are You Going To Do That Little Jump? The Adventure Continues followed in October 2021. At the same time, Gillespie launched a new publicly-available and growing online archive of his extensive career, entitled Little Jump.
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It was built for the producer Henry Leslie, who financed it from the profits of the light opera hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from its original venue to open the new theatre on 17 December 1888.
Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unofficial entertainments for his comrades in the army, he was appointed to do so officially. After the war he produced and directed mostly in the West End. He staged premieres of plays by writers including J. M. Barrie, Noël Coward, John Galsworthy, Harley Granville-Barker and Somerset Maugham. He produced nearly 40 films, and directed 16, mainly in the 1930s, with stars including Gracie Fields.
Ronald Glasfryn Lewis was a Welsh actor, best known for his appearances in British films of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Seven Descents of Myrtle is a play in seven scenes by Tennessee Williams. It started as a short story, The Kingdom of Earth, which Williams began in 1942 while in Macon, Georgia, but did not publish until 1954, in the limited edition of his story collection Hard Candy. Williams subsequently adapted the story into a one-act play, "Kingdom of Earth," published in the February 1, 1967, edition of Esquire magazine. He then expanded that play into a full-length seven-scene version, premiered the following year in New York with the title The Seven Descents of Myrtle and published on October 31, 1968, by New Directions as Kingdom of Earth. Its title character is reminiscent of another Williams' heroine, Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Calamity Jane (A Musical Western) is a stage musical based on the historical figure of frontierswoman Calamity Jane. The non-historical, somewhat farcical plot involves the authentic Calamity Jane's professional associate Wild Bill Hickok, and presents the two as having a contentious relationship that ultimately proves to be a facade for mutually amorous feelings. The Calamity Jane stage musical was an adaption of a 1953 Warner Bros. musical film of the same name that starred Doris Day. First produced in 1961, the stage musical Calamity Jane features six songs not heard in the film. According to Jodie Prenger, star of the Calamity Jane 2014–15 UK tour, the songs added for the stage musical had been written for but not included in the Calamity Jane film ("Love You Dearly" had been used in the 1954 Doris Day musical film Lucky Me).
The Aldwych farces were a series of twelve stage farces presented at the Aldwych Theatre, London, nearly continuously from 1923 to 1933. All but three of them were written by Ben Travers. They incorporate and develop British low comedy styles, combined with clever word-play. The plays were presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls and starred Walls and Ralph Lynn, supported by a regular company that included Robertson Hare, Mary Brough, Winifred Shotter, Ethel Coleridge, and Gordon James.
The Living Room is a 1953 play by Graham Greene
Sailor Beware! is a comic play by Philip King and Falkland Cary. After a repertory company production in Worthing in 1954, it opened in the West End of London on 16 February 1955 and ran for 1,231 performances.
The Skin of Our Teeth is a 1959 Australian television play based on the play by Thorton Wilder. It starred John Ewart.
Alan Burke was an Australian writer and film director and producer. His credits include the musical Lola Montez.