29-514: The Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered in the USA in 1955 and was produced in Britain the following year. It tells the story of the imperious Mrs St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under the care of Miss Madrigal, a governess, whose past life is a mystery that is solved during the action of the play. The work has been revived numerous times internationally, and
58-671: A 1970 revival directed by Laurier Lister at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre , Guildford , with Joan Greenwood as Miss Madrigal, Robert Flemyng as Maitland and Donald Eccles as the Judge. Cooper and Greenwood reprised their roles in the play's first West End revival, in 1971 at the Haymarket, directed by William Chappell , with Michael Goodliffe as the Judge and Peter Bayliss as Maitland. The first revival in New York
87-488: A driver in her first novel, The Happy Foreigner . On 8 July 1920, she married Sir Roderick Jones , chairman of Reuters , but continued to use her maiden name for her writing. They lived at North End House, Rottingdean , near Brighton (previously the home of Sir Edward Burne-Jones ), enjoying a glamorous social life. The garden of North End House inspired her play The Chalk Garden . The Joneses' London house from 1928 until 1969, seven years after Sir Roderick's death,
116-416: A mother and the instincts of children leads The Squire close to the realms of documentary." The feminist weekly Time and Tide described it as "a mark in feminist history as well as a fine literary feat." The Loved and Envied (1951), is a study of approaching old age in which the protagonist, Lady Ruby MacLean, is thought to have been based on Lady Diana Cooper . An adaptation of National Velvet for
145-473: A star vehicle for Katharine Hepburn in 1976. These three plays, along with The Last Joke - a notable flop at the Phoenix Theatre in 1960 despite its star cast of John Gielgud , Ralph Richardson and Anna Massey - were collected together by Heinemann as Four Plays by Enid Bagnold in 1970. Michael Goodliffe Lawrence Michael Andrew Goodliffe (1 October 1914 – 20 March 1976)
174-421: Is a fragile, gossamer-winged play..." Frank Rich reviewed the 1982 Roundabout production for The New York Times , writing: " 'The Chalk Garden' is extraordinarily modern for a high comedy set in the drawing room of a stuffy Sussex manor house: its plot and structure are elliptical; its witty lines aren't brittle but are instead redolent with what the author calls 'the shape and shadow of life.'... Bagnold's play
203-526: Is hired as a governess, despite her lack of references. Also in the household is a valet, Maitland, who has just been released from a five-year sentence in prison. Olivia, Laurel's mother, who has remarried, arrives for a visit. When the Judge comes to the house for lunch, he reveals that he had sentenced Miss Madrigal to jail for murder. The first Australian production, in 1957, featured Sybil Thorndike , Lewis Casson , Patricia Kennedy and Gordon Chater . In Britain, Gladys Cooper again played Mrs St Maugham in
232-411: Is in part a journey to the bottom of Miss Madrigal's identity; it is also about the effect the woman has on her employer's household. Mrs St Maugham is a selfish, eccentric paragon of privilege who spends her days gardening but can't make anything grow." Enid Bagnold Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones , CBE (27 October 1889 – 31 March 1981) was a British writer and playwright best known for
261-480: Is the story of a young girl who wins the Grand National steeplechase. A highly successful film version came out in 1944, starring the young Elizabeth Taylor . However, Bagnold's work includes a broad range of subject matter and style. The Squire is a novel about having a baby. Bagnold's biographer Anne Sebba says that "although always described as a novel, the serious effort to discover the motivations of
290-1050: The British Army at the beginning of the Second World War , and received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in February 1940. He was wounded in the leg and captured at the Battle of Dunkirk . Goodliffe was incorrectly listed as killed in action, and even had his obituary published in a newspaper. He was to spend the rest of the war a prisoner in Germany. Whilst in captivity he produced and acted in (and in some cases wrote) many plays and sketches to entertain fellow prisoners. These included two productions of William Shakespeare 's Hamlet , one in Tittmoning and
319-721: The Donmar Warehouse , London was directed by Michael Grandage , with Margaret Tyzack as Mrs St Maugham, Penelope Wilton as Miss Madrigal, Felicity Jones as Laurel, and Jamie Glover as Maitland. In 2018 the Chichester Festival Theatre presented a new production, featuring Penelope Keith (Mrs St Maugham), Amanda Root (Miss Madrigal) and Oliver Ford Davies (Judge). The director was Alan Strachan. A 1964 film adaptation featured Edith Evans as Mrs St Maugham, Deborah Kerr as Miss Madrigal, Hayley Mills as Laurel, and John Mills as Maitland. It
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#1732802082033348-855: The 1935 story National Velvet . Enid Algerine Bagnold was born on 27 October 1889 in Rochester, Kent , daughter of Colonel Arthur Henry Bagnold and his wife, Ethel (née Alger), and brought up mostly in Jamaica . Her younger brother was Ralph Bagnold . She attended art school in London , and then worked as assistant editor on one of the magazines run by Frank Harris , who became her lover. Harris and Bagnold are both portrayed in Hugh Kingsmill 's novel The Will to Love (1919). As an art student in Chelsea, Bagnold painted with Walter Sickert and
377-687: The most literate and sophisticated" of recent plays. Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune wrote, "I can't quite remember any other occasion in the theater when I so resisted a first act only to wind up at the end of the third wishing there were a fourth." When the play opened in London, Philip Hope-Wallace wrote in The Manchester Guardian of experiencing "a unique theatrical pleasure" at Edith Evans's performance, invoked Chekhov's The Seagull and called
406-540: The other in Eichstätt , in which he played the title role. He also produced the first staging of Noël Coward 's Post-Mortem at Eichstätt. A full photographic record of these productions exists. After the war, he resumed his professional acting career. As well as appearing in the theatre, he worked in film and television. He appeared in The Wooden Horse (1950) and in other POW films. His best-known film
435-506: The piece "a woman's play in the very best sense, being laconic, compassionate and wonderfully gay-hearted". In The Observer , Kenneth Tynan commented that The Chalk Garden "may well be the finest artificial comedy to have flowed from an English (as opposed to an Irish) pen since the death of Congreve." Rex Reed , in his review of the 1971 West End production, wrote: "This endearing play never seems to age, perhaps because its characters are written with such wit and brittle cleverness... It
464-564: The play starred Eleanor Summerfield as Mrs St Maugham and Nyree Dawn Porter as Miss Madrigal; Ernest Clark was the Judge and Bruce Montague played Maitland. A revival at the King's Head Theatre , London in 1992 again featured Cummings as Mrs St Maugham, with Jean Marsh as Miss Madrigal and Robert Flemyng as the Judge. The play was revived in Australia in 1995, starring Googie Withers , Judi Farr and John McCallum . A 2008 production at
493-486: The play. They discussed the casting for the production; the author hoped Edith Evans would play Mrs St Maugham, but Selznick insisted on casting Gladys Cooper . For the enigmatic role of Miss Madrigal, Selznick hoped to cast her friend Katharine Hepburn , but Hepburn did not respond to the play and turned the part down. Selznick and Bagnold agreed to offer the part to Wendy Hiller , who declined it because she did not wish to leave England. Finally, Siobhán McKenna accepted
522-579: The role. Selznick engaged George Cukor to direct; he took the play through its rehearsals and out-of-town previews, but handed over to Albert Marre before the Broadway premiere. The designer for both sets and costumes was Cecil Beaton , whom Cukor and Selznick found intolerable to work with, but whose designs were highly praised. The Chalk Garden was first performed at the Shubert Theatre , New Haven , Connecticut, on 21 September 1955, and
551-481: The theatre was produced and directed by Anthony Hawtrey for his Embassy Theatre at Swiss Cottage in 1946, and published in Volume 2 of his Embassy Successes (1946). But The Chalk Garden (1955), film version 1964, was Bagnold's greatest stage success. The Chinese Prime Minister was presented on Broadway in 1965 with Edith Evans . A Matter of Gravity , originally titled Call Me Jacky , played on Broadway as
580-507: Was A Night to Remember (1958), in which he played Thomas Andrews , designer of the RMS Titanic . His best-known television series was Sam (1973–75) in which he played an unemployed Yorkshire miner. He also appeared with John Thaw and James Bolam in the 1967 television series Inheritance . In the 1972 BBC TV series Henry VIII and his Six Wives Goodliffe played Sir Thomas More . Suffering from depression, Goodliffe had
609-552: Was John Gielgud , the sets were by Reece Pemberton and the costumes by Sophie Harris . The play ran at the Haymarket for 658 performances, ending on 9 November 1957. Mrs St Maugham lives in her country house in a village in Sussex , where the garden is on lime and chalk, making it difficult for her to succeed in her determined but incompetent efforts as a gardener. She is taking care of her disturbed teenage grandchild, Laurel, who has been setting fires. Miss Madrigal, an expert gardener,
SECTION 20
#1732802082033638-656: Was adapted for the cinema in 1964. Bagnold wrote the play with an English premiere in mind, but the West End producer, Binkie Beaumont , turned it down: "I confess I find some of the symbolism confusing and muddling." The piece was taken up by the American producer Irene Selznick , who proposed a Broadway premiere. She found the play challenging and tantalising – "I am haunted by its gossamer flashes of poetry and beauty" – but lacking in focus. In July 1954 she travelled to England to work with Bagnold for six weeks, tightening
667-626: Was No. 29 Hyde Park Gate , which meant that they were the neighbours for many of those years of Winston Churchill and Jacob Epstein . The couple had four children. The eldest was Laurian (born 1921, later the Comtesse d'Harcourt) who illustrated Alice & Thomas & Jane at the age of nine and National Velvet at 14. Their great-granddaughter is Samantha Cameron , wife of the former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron . Bagnold published her autobiography in 1969. She died on 31 March 1981 from bronchopneumonia and
696-697: Was an English actor known for playing suave roles such as doctors, lawyers and army officers. He was also sometimes cast in working-class parts. Goodliffe was born in Bebington , Wirral , the son of a vicar, and educated at St Edmund's School , Canterbury , and Keble College, Oxford . He began his career in repertory theatre in Liverpool before joining the company of the Stratford Memorial Theatre in Stratford upon Avon . He joined
725-445: Was cremated at Golders Green . Her biography, by Anna Sebba and published in 1987, revealed some of the more problematic and contradictory aspects of her life: literary feuds, her marriage, her approach to motherhood, pre-war Nazi sympathies, her morphine addiction, and her contempt of the many leading actors who appeared in her plays. Cecil Beaton called it "a strange, remarkable, original and warped life." National Velvet (1935),
754-752: Was directed by Ronald Neame . The BBC broadcast a radio adaptation of the play in 1968, with Edith Evans recreating her role of Mrs St Maugham, Mary Morris as Miss Madrigal, Cecil Parker as the Judge and Angela Pleasence as Laurel. The cast of the 2008 Donmar production recorded a studio performance for BBC Radio 3 , first broadcast in March 2011. The notices for the Broadway premiere were excellent. Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times : In The Daily News John Chapman called it "A tantalizing, fascinating and stimulating piece of theatre …
783-508: Was given by the Roundabout Theatre Company at Roundabout Stage 1 from 30 March 1982 to 20 June 1982. The cast featured Constance Cummings as Mrs St Maugham, Irene Worth as Miss Madrigal and Donal Donnelly as Maitland. The director was John Stix. As at 2020 this was the only further staging of the piece in New York, a planned production in 2017 starring Angela Lansbury having fallen through. A 1984 British tour of
812-634: Was given on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 26 October. It ran for 182 performances. When Beaumont saw the enthusiastic reviews by the New York critics he immediately changed his mind about producing the piece in London. The play had its British premiere at the Alexandra Theatre , Birmingham , on 21 March 1956 and was first seen in London on 11 April at the Theatre Royal Haymarket . The director
841-517: Was sculpted by Gaudier Brzeska . During the First World War she became a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse ; she wrote critically of the hospital administration, which won her fame, and was dismissed as a result. After that she was a driver in France for the remainder of the war years. She wrote about her hospital experiences in her memoir A Diary Without Dates , and about her experiences as
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