The Ninth Man | |
---|---|
Written by | Frederick Jackson |
Date premiered | 19 January 1931 |
Place premiered | Theatre Royal, Brighton |
Original language | English |
Genre | Thriller |
The Ninth Man is a 1931 thriller play in three acts by Frederick Jackson. A crime drama, the plot focuses on a gang of opium dealers in New York City. [1]
The Ninth Man was written as a starring vehicle for Rex Harrison who portrayed Detective Rankin in the original production. [2] Other members of the original cast included John Longden as Costigan, Nora Swinburne as Laurel Prescott, Edward Ashley-Cooper as Legard Draper, Diana Wilson as Nadine Westley, Philip Desborough as Dr. Sindor, Frank Royde as Hotsang, May Beamish as Mrs. Meadows, and Leonard Brett as the undertaker. [3] Brett was also the stage director for this production. [4]
The Ninth Man was supported by the backing of French impresario André Charlot and was produced by Campbell Gullan. [5] The play premiered at the Theatre Royal, Brighton on 19 January 1931. [1] It then had a short tour to provincial theatres before reaching the Prince of Wales Theatre in the West End. [2] It opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on February 11, 1931 and closed after 45 performances on March 21, 1931. [1]
My Fair Lady is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on the 1938 film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. Despite his cynical nature and difficulty understanding women, Higgins grows attached to her.
Sir Reginald Carey "Rex" Harrison was an English actor. Harrison began his career on the stage in 1924. He made his West End debut in 1936 appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, in what was his breakthrough role. He won his first Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Henry VIII in the Broadway play Anne of the Thousand Days in 1949. He returned to Broadway portraying Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1956) where he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Peter Jeremy William Huggins, known professionally as Jeremy Brett, was an English actor. He played fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series from 1984 to 1994 in all 41 episodes. His career spanned from stage, to television and film, to Shakespeare and musical theatre. He also played the smitten Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the 1964 Warner Bros. production of My Fair Lady.
Rachel Roberts was a Welsh actress. She is best remembered for her screen performances as the older mistress of the central male characters in both Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and This Sporting Life (1963). For each, she won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for This Sporting Life. Her other notable film appearances included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Yanks (1979).
Colin Glenn Clive was a British stage and screen actor. His most memorable role was Henry Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in the 1931 film Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein.
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson, was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969.
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at the junction of Denman Street and Sherwood Street, near Piccadilly Circus, in the City of Westminster, London. It opened in 1928.
Benjamin Arthur Flemyng, known professionally as Robert Flemyng, was a British actor. The son of a doctor, and originally intended for a medical career, Flemyng learned his stagecraft in provincial repertory theatre. In 1935 he appeared in a leading role in the West End, and the following year had his first major success, in Terence Rattigan's comedy French Without Tears. Between then and the Second World War he appeared in London and New York in a succession of comedies.
Sir John Hare, born John Joseph Fairs, was an English actor and theatre manager of the later 19th– and early 20th centuries.
My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musical comedy-drama film adapted from the 1956 Lerner and Loewe stage musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 stage play Pygmalion. With a screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner and directed by George Cukor, the film depicts a poor Cockney flower-seller named Eliza Doolittle who overhears a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, as he casually wagers that he could teach her to speak English so well she could pass for a duchess in Edwardian London or better yet, from Eliza's viewpoint, secure employment in a flower shop.
The Theatre Royal, Brighton is a theatre in Brighton, England presenting a range of West End and touring musicals and plays, along with performances of opera and ballet.
John Peter Wearing is an Anglo-American theatre historian and professor, who has written numerous books and articles about nineteenth and twentieth-century drama and theatre, including The Shakespeare Diaries: A Fictional Autobiography, published in 2007. He has also written and edited well-received books on George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Wing Pinero, extensive reference series on the London theatre from 1890 to 1980, and theatrical biographies, among other subjects. As a professor of English literature, Wearing has specialised in Shakespeare and modern drama.
David Hawthorne was a British stage and film actor. He played the leading man in a number of films during the silent era, but later switched to character roles. One of his more notable roles was that of Rob Roy MacGregor in the 1922 film Rob Roy.
Venus Observed is a play in blank verse by the English dramatist and poet Christopher Fry. The play concerns a Duke who decides to remarry for a third time. He gets his son Edgar to pick the bride. The Duke likes Perpetua but Edgar wants her for himself.
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a former theatre in central Cardiff. Built in 1878, seating 2,800, it later became a sex cinema. It is now a pub.
The Old Man is a 1931 mystery play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. Its original production was staged at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End for a ninety performance run. It is set entirely in the "Coat of Arms" tavern where a mysterious old man lurks in the background, reputedly an escapee from a lunatic asylum. The original cast included Alfred Drayton, Jack Melford, Harold Warrender and Finlay Currie.
The Good Companions is a 1931 play by J.B. Priestley and Edward Knoblock, based on Priestley's 1929 novel of the same title about a touring concert party. The music was composed by Richard Addinsell.
Mr Faint-Heart is a 1931 comedy play by the British writer Ian Hay. It was staged at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End between 20 April and 20 June 1931.
Ouida MacDermott was a British singer and actress whose career was mainly in music hall and as a principal boy in pantomime during the Edwardian era. She appeared on one of the first television broadcasts in 1930.
Maidie Andrews was an English actress and singer who, in career that spanned six decades, was a child actress and later a stage beauty who appeared in musical comedy including the original London productions of No, No, Nanette (1925) and Cavalcade (1931). The latter years of her career saw her taking roles in television and film.