Laurence Olivier & Vivien Leigh
The Final Curtain
By David Barry
ISBN: 9781837914029
After decades of theatrical ventures and performing together, 1957 would be the last time Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh would work together, with a European tour and London season of Shakespeare’s seldom-performed Titus Andronicus.
After decades of theatrical ventures and performing together, 1957 would be the last time Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh would work together, with a European tour and London season of Shakespeare’s seldom-performed Titus Andronicus. Strangely, not much has been written about one of the most prestigious touring theatre productions of all time, which visited six European capitals and became the first British Shakespearean company to perform beyond the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. Now, David Barry tells the entire inside story of the incredible tour, in which he – at the age of just fourteen – played Olivier’s grandson, accompanying the media-power couple of the decade around Europe. This is theatre history that has never before been told in such detail and will take the reader on the trip of a lifetime to discover what really went on during the crazy, hectic, wild and yet still utterly sensational touring production.
DAVID BARRY
David Barry is the pseudonym of Meurig Jones,and he was born in Bangor, North Wales. He attended Corona Academy Stage School in Chiswick, London, from the age of 12. As a child actor he worked with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in “Titus Andronicus”, touring Europe in 1957. Also, as a teenager, filmed with Tyrone Power, and worked on stage with Paul Scofield. In his early 20s he played Frankie Abbott in “Please, Sir!” and “Fenn Street Gang”, at which time he wrote his first broadcast script. He also wrote “Keep It in The Family” for Thames TV (3 episodes). His novels include “Each Man Kills”, “Willie the Actor”, “The Ice Cream Time Machine”, “Careless Talk”, “More Careless Talk”, “Muscle”, “A Deadly Diversion” and Walking Shadows”. He has also published a book of short stories “Tales from Soho”.
His favourite authors are Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck and many thriller writers, including Michael Connelly, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Raymond Chandler, James Lee Burke.