The Best of the West End

The popular myth is that there was nothing of any worth in the mid-century British theatre until 1956, when John Osborne and the Angry Young Men at the Royal Court Theatre stormed the stage. In fact the West End of the thirties, forties and fifties was remarkable both for its actors - such as Sybil Thorndike, Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson - and its playwrights, including Terence Rattigan, John Whiting, Robert Bolt, Wynyard Browne and N.C. Hunter. Taking the career of one man, the actor, producer and director Frith Banbury, The Best of the West End casts a lens on British theatre in the mid to late twentieth century, revisiting many of the best productions of those years. The resulting book is a vital and necessary re-evaluation of the era.