The Linden Tree is a 1947 play by the English dramatist J. B. Priestley. It was first produced at the Duchess Theatre, London on 15 August 1947 and ran for 422 performances. [1] [2] The play had a brief run on Broadway in March 1948, lasting only seven performances, in a production directed by George Schaefer, using costumes designed by Frank Thompson, and starring Boris Karloff as Professor Linden.
The play was directed by Michael Macowan.
The play takes place in 1947 England in the home of Professor Robert Linden, who holds the chair of modern history at the provincial University of Burmanley. Rationing and austerity seem to have fostered opportunism, escapism and confrontation within the Linden family, who have gathered to celebrate Professor Linden's 65th birthday and each of whom is struggling with their own crises. Linden wants only to continue teaching in a world that no longer seems to share his quiet ideals. The new vice-chancellor of the university is pressing Linden to retire, and family itself divides along political lines, the worldly versus the idealists. The critic Michael Billington summarises it thus: "Linden's put-upon wife, super-spiv son and expatriate daughter all press him to opt for retirement. But his other daughters – a dedicated NHS doctor and a 17-year-old cello-playing student – urge him to fight on." [3]
Reviewing the first production, Philip Hope-Wallace of The Manchester Guardian , thought it a good play, but one that "remains obstinately on this side of greatness", because the central character, Professor Linden, is "good and dogged" rather than heroic. [4] The reviewer in The Times also considered that the play was good but not great. [1] After a 2006 revival of the play, Billington, reviewing it in The Guardian thought it "a key work in the immediate post-war theatre". [2]
The play was revived at the Orange Tree Theatre in 2006, and at the Pentameters Theatre in 2011. [3] [5]
A television version was broadcast in the Play of the Month series in September 1974. BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation by Mollie Greenhalgh directed by Kay Patrick in 1997, with Geoffrey Banks as Professor Linden, Kathleen Helme as Isabel, Christopher Godwin as Rex Linden, Carole Hayman as Dr Jean Linden, Joanna Wake as Marion de Saint Vaury, Penelope Reynolds as Dinah Linden and David Mahlowe as Alfred Lockhart. It was re-broadcast in 2017 on BBC Radio 4 Extra. [6]
John Boynton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.
Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.
Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor, theatre director and narrator. He has directed on stage and radio, and worked as an actor in theatre, film, television, and radio. He has appeared as reciter with orchestras and performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 2002. He has narrated several documentary series, including five for the BBC about the Second World War.
The Deep Blue Sea is a British stage play by Terence Rattigan from 1952. Rattigan based his story and characters in part on his secret relationship with Kenny Morgan, and the aftermath of the end of their relationship. The play was first performed in London on 6 March 1952, directed by Frith Banbury, and won praise for actress Peggy Ashcroft, who co-starred with Kenneth More. In the US, the Plymouth Theater staged the play in October 1952, with Margaret Sullavan. The play with Sullavan subsequently transferred to Broadway, with its Broadway premiere on 5 November 1953, and running for 132 performances.
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndham's Theatre, July 1975 – January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre April–May 1976, and New York's Longacre Theatre from October–December 1976. It returned to the Lyttelton from January – February 1977. It is a two-act play.
Dinah Sheridan was an English actress with a career spanning seven decades. She was best known for the films Genevieve (1953) and The Railway Children (1970); the long-running BBC comedy series Don't Wait Up (1983–1990); and for her distinguished theatre career in London's West End.
The Duchess Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, London, located in Catherine Street near Aldwych.
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Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. He writes for The Guardian, and was the paper's chief drama critic from 1971 to 2019. Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008).
John Morley Shrapnel was an English actor. He is known mainly for his stage work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre in the United Kingdom and for his many television appearances. One of his well-known roles was Mr Skinner in the 1996 live-action film 101 Dalmatians.
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Harriet Jane Morahan is an English actress. Her roles include Sister Clara in The Golden Compass (2007), Gale Benson in The Bank Job (2008), Alice in The Bletchley Circle (2012–2014), Ann in Mr. Holmes (2015), Rose Coyne in My Mother and Other Strangers (2016), and Agathe/The Enchantress in Beauty and the Beast (2017).
Christopher Thomas Morahan CBE was a British stage and television director and production executive.
Alex Waldmann is an English actor from London. He is married to director Amelia Sears.
Michael Elliott, OBE was an English theatre and television director. He was a founding director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
In Praise of Love, originally entitled After Lydia, is the first part of a 1973 double-bill play by the English playwright Terence Rattigan. It was the penultimate play he wrote.
Cocktail Sticks is an autobiographical play by the English playwright Alan Bennett. It premièred in the National Theatre in 2012 as part of a double bill. The production was directed by long-term Bennett collaborator Nicholas Hytner. It received great acclaim, and transferred to the Duchess Theatre in the West End of London. The role of Bennett was played by Alex Jennings.
The Daughter-in-Law is the first play by D. H. Lawrence, completed in January 1913. Lawrence described it as "neither a tragedy nor a comedy - just ordinary". It was neither staged nor published in his lifetime.
Summer Day's Dream is a 1949 play by J. B. Priestley. It is set in 1975, and evokes a world where a nuclear Third World War has caused Britain to revert to a pre-industrial, pre-capitalist state. It takes its title from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is being produced by two members of the English family the play is based around.