Thursday, 11 December 2014

No sign of the dove

Despite great reviews at the time in Leeds Peter Ustinov's obit says this about the play,

Several other plays of this period failed to take fire. The Man in the Raincoat (Edinburgh Festival, 1949) concerned a miscarriage of justice. The Moment of Truth (Adelphi, 1951) was a political drama set in Vichy France, with Marshal Pétain as a doddering old ruin reminiscent of King Lear.
High Balcony (Embassy Theatre, 1952), which portrayed the reaction of a German embassy to victory and defeat, gave Donald Pleasence an early opportunity as a villainous Nazi. No Sign of the Dove (Savoy, 1953) was a reworking of the Noah legend, pregnant with foreboding about the future of England; it was roundly booed by a claque.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1458039/Sir-Peter-Ustinov.html



However, the Riverside Dictionary of Biography (US publishers)
For Beatrix's biography includes:
“She first appeared on the stage in 1924 at the Lyric, Hammersmith, and subsequently appeared in many successful plays, including Family Reunion, Peter Ustinov’s No sign of the Dove and Waltz of the Toreadors.”
Which is a totally different list of "famous" plays than normal.

No comments:

Post a Comment