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Tag Archives: John Bull’s Other Island (comedy)


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Death of Theatrical Producer Hilton Edwards

Hilton Edwards, an English-born Irish actor, lighting designer, and theatrical producer, dies in a Dublin hospital on November 18, 1982, following a short illness.

Edwards is born in London on February 2, 1903. He begins his career acting with the Charles Doran Shakespeare Company in 1920 in Windsor and then joins The Old Vic in London, playing in all but two of Shakespeare‘s plays before leaving the company a few years later. Trained in music, he also sings baritone roles with the Old Vic Opera company.

After touring with various companies in Britain and South Africa, Edwards goes to Ireland in 1927 for a season with Anew McMaster‘s company and meets McMaster’s brother-in-law, Micheál Mac Liammóir. As he tells an interviewer once, both men want a theater of their own. Mac Liammóir wants it to be in Ireland and Edwards does not care. “I don’t care about nationalism, I care about the theater,” he says.

Edwards and Mac Liammóir co-found the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1928. The two men’s talents are complementary. Mac Liammóir is an actor, designer, and writer. Edwards is a director, actor, producer, and lighting designer. Edwards produces and directs more than 300 plays at the Gate, ranging from the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Henrik Ibsen to the comedies of George Bernard Shaw and Richard Brinsley Sheridan and new Irish plays, by such authors as W. B. Yeats, Brian Friel, and Mac Liammóir.

In New York City in 1948 Edwards plays in and directs John Bull’s Other Island and directs The Old Lady Says No and Where Stars Walk. In 1961, Edwards takes a two-year leave from the Gate to become the first Head of Drama at Telefís Éireann. A year later, he wins a Jacob’s Award for his television series Self Portrait.

Edwards appears in 15 films, including Captain Lightfoot (1955), David and Goliath (1960), Victim (1961), and Half a Sixpence (1967). He also writes and directs Orson Welles‘s Return to Glennascaul (1951). However, he is primarily known for his theatre work. He is nominated for a Tony Award in 1966 for Best Director of a Drama for Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Hilton Edwards dies in a Dublin hospital on November 18, 1982. Edwards and Mac Liammóir are the subject of a biography, titled The Boys by Christophor Fitz-Simon.


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Birth of Stage & Screen Actor, Brefni O’Rorke

Brefni O’Rorke, Irish actor, both on the stage and in movies, is born in Dollymount, Clontarf, Dublin, on June 26, 1889.

O’Rorke is born as William Francis Breffni O’Rorke at 2 Esplande Villas in Dollymount, and baptised at Clontarf Parish Church on August 1, 1889. His father, Frederick O’Rorke, is a cork merchant, and his mother, Jane Caroline O’Rorke (née Morgan), is an actress. He has an older brother, Frederick, who is twelve years older than him.

O’Rorke begins studying acting with his mother and makes his professional début in 1912 at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in a production of George Bernard Shaw‘s John Bull’s Other Island. In 1916, while still living in Dublin, he meets and marries Alice Cole, a chorus-girl turned actress, who had divorced her first husband and immigrated from South Africa with her young son. Thus O’Rorke becomes the stepfather of Cyril Cusack. Other theatre roles include the title role in Finn Varra Maa (1917), a musical “pantomime” or light opera written by Thomas Henry Nally with music by Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer.

National Television starts in October 1936, initially broadcast just two hours a day. The station stops broadcasting at the start of World War II, and does not restart until 1946. Plays, like everything else, can last just one hour maximum, but some are only 25 minutes long. Also, there is no recording possible, so any repeat is really a new broadcast, as in The Advantages of Paternity.

In 1939 O’Rorke appears in several broadcasts in the new fledgling BBC Television, including a play by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy called The King of Spain’s Daughter, produced by Denis Johnston.

O’Rorke is a busy character actor up to his death on November 11, 1946, and his legacy lay not only in several memorable performances but also, to some extent, in the subsequent success of his stepson. From the late 1940s thru the 1980s, Cyril Cusack is one of the most renowned stage actors of his generation, as well as an acclaimed film actor, and he founds an acting dynasty to rival that of the Redgrave family through his actress daughters.


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Birth of Theatrical Producer Hilton Edwards

hilton-edwards

Hilton Edwards, an English-born Irish actor, lighting designer, and theatrical producer, is born in London on February 2, 1903.

Edwards begins his career acting with the Charles Doran Shakespeare Company in 1920 in Windsor and then joins The Old Vic in London, playing in all but two of Shakespeare‘s plays before leaving the company a few years later. Trained in music, he also sings baritone roles with the Old Vic Opera company.

After touring with various companies in Britain and South Africa, Edwards goes to Ireland in 1927 for a season with Anew McMaster’s company and meets McMaster’s brother-in-law, Micheál Mac Liammóir. As he tells an interviewer once, both men want a theater of their own. Mac Liammóir wants it to be in Ireland and Edwards does not care. “I don’t care about nationalism, I care about the theater,” he says.

Edwards and Mac Liammóir co-found the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1928. The two men’s talents are complementary. Mac Liammóir is an actor, designer, and writer. Edwards is a director, actor, producer, and lighting designer. Edwards produces and directs more than 300 plays at the Gate, ranging from the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Henrik Ibsen to the comedies of George Bernard Shaw and Richard Brinsley Sheridan and new Irish plays, by such authors as W.B. Yeats, Brian Friel, and Mac Liammóir.

In New York City in 1948 Edwards plays in and directs John Bull’s Other Island and directs The Old Lady Says No and Where Stars Walk. In 1961 Edwards takes a two-year leave from the Gate to become the first Head of Drama at Telefís Éireann. A year later, he wins a Jacob’s Award for his television series Self Portrait.

Edwards appears in 15 films, including Captain Lightfoot (1955), David and Goliath (1960), Victim (1961), and Half a Sixpence (1967). He also writes and directs Orson Welles‘s Return to Glennascaul (1951). However, he is primarily known for his theatre work. He is nominated for a Tony Award in 1966 for Best Director of a Drama for Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Hilton Edwards dies in a Dublin hospital on November 18, 1982. Edwards and Mac Liammóir are the subject of a biography, titled The Boys by Christophor Fitz-Simon.