A report on West End theatre, John Gielgud and Private Lives

The Palace Theatre, in the City of Westminster, London, built in 1891

Gielgud as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, 1959

Poster from the 1968 Theatre De Lys production featuring a sketch of Coward

The London Palladium in Soho opened in 1910. While the Theatre has a resident show, it also has one-off performances such as concerts. Since 1930 it has hosted the Royal Variety Performance 43 times.

Centre: Marion, Kate and Ellen Terry and, far right, Fred Terry at Ellen's Silver Jubilee matinée, Drury Lane, 12 June 1906. Everyone shown was a member of the Terry family.

Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in the Broadway production of Private Lives (1931)

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Opened in May 1663, it is the oldest theatre in London.

Noël Coward with Lilian Braithwaite, his, and later Gielgud's, co-star in The Vortex

Original interior of Savoy Theatre in 1881, the year it became the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.

Mrs Patrick Campbell and Edith Evans, 1920s co-stars with Gielgud

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were the headline stars in a 1983 Broadway production

The Lyceum Theatre, home to Disney's The Lion King.

The Old Vic (photographed in 2012), where Gielgud honed his skill as a Shakespearean

Poster for the 1931 film, starring Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery

Queen's Theatre showing Les Misérables, running in London since October 1985

Mabel Terry-Lewis, Gielgud's aunt and co-star in The Importance of Being Earnest

The restored facade of the Dominion Theatre, as seen in 2017

The St Martin's Theatre, home to The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play.

Gielgud in a publicity photograph for Secret Agent (1936)

The Royal Court Theatre. Upstairs is used as an experimental space for new projects—The Rocky Horror Show premiered here in 1973.

Gielgud and Dolly Haas in Crime and Punishment, Broadway, 1947

West End theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2016

Edmond O'Brien (Casca, left) and Gielgud (Cassius) in Julius Caesar (1953)

Gilbert and Sullivan play at the Savoy in 1881

Victoria Palace Theatre (showing Billy Elliot in 2012) was refurbished in 2017.

Much Ado About Nothing: Gielgud as Benedick and Margaret Leighton as Beatrice, 1959

Gielgud (left) as Joseph Surface, and Ralph Richardson as Sir Peter Teazle, The School for Scandal, 1962

After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.

- John Gielgud

A Broadway production followed in 1931, and the play has been revived at least a half dozen times each in the West End and on Broadway.

- Private Lives

Directors of new productions have included John Gielgud, Howard Davies and Richard Eyre.

- Private Lives

In 1930, Laurence Olivier had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's Private Lives.

- West End theatre

A number of other actors made their West End debut prior to the Second World War, including John Gielgud, Alec Guinness and Vivien Leigh.

- West End theatre

In the theatre Gielgud directed Coward's Private Lives and Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife (both 1973, London and 1974, New York).

- John Gielgud

2 related topics with Alpha

Laurence Olivier

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The house in Wathen Road, Dorking, Surrey, where Olivier was born in 1907

Peggy Ashcroft, a contemporary and friend of Olivier's at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, photographed in 1936

Olivier, with his first wife Jill Esmond (left), in 1932

The Old Vic (photographed in 2012), where Olivier honed his skill as a Shakespearean

Olivier, with Merle Oberon in the 1939 film Wuthering Heights

Olivier with Joan Fontaine in the 1940 film Rebecca

Overseas newspaper correspondents visit the set of Henry V at Denham Studios in 1943

Co-director and co-star: Ralph Richardson in the 1940s

Olivier, with Joan Plowright in The Entertainer on Broadway in 1958

Poster for Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, one of two films in which Olivier appeared in 1960

Laurence Olivier in 1972, during the production of Sleuth

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century.

In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's Private Lives, and he appeared in his first film.

Noël Coward

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English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".

Coward (left) with Lydia Bilbrook and Charles Hawtrey, 1911

Coward in The Knight of the Burning Pestle in 1920

Coward with Lilian Braithwaite, his co-star in The Vortex and the mother of his close friend Joyce Carey

Ivor Novello, top l., Alfred Lunt, top r., Lynn Fontanne, lower l. and Judy Campbell – stars of Coward premières of the 1920s–1940s

Coward, with Norman Hackforth at the piano, performing for sailors aboard in Ceylon, August 1944

"Dad's Renaissance": Coward's popularity surged in the 1960s; this poster features Al Hirschfeld's drawing of Coward rather than the stars of this 1968 revival.

Coward in his home in Switzerland in 1972

The Coward image: with cigarette holder in 1930

Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter, and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire.

Coward played in the piece in 1911 and 1912 at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End.

Relative Values (1951) addresses the culture clash between an aristocratic English family and a Hollywood actress with matrimonial ambitions; South Sea Bubble (1951) is a political comedy set in a British colony; Quadrille (1952) is a drama about Victorian love and elopement; and Nude with Violin (1956, starring John Gielgud in London and Coward in New York) is a satire on modern art and critical pretension.