Josephine Tey

by Jennifer Morag Henderson

  There is not only a script of the finished play in the Museum, but three complete rough drafts, as well as a few loose scenes. As discussed, part of the reason Richard of Bordeaux was to become so successful was that Beth chose to write it in modern language, something which was relatively new in theatre at the time. Instead of the stately Shakespearian Richard, who spoke a language his audience had to work to understand, Beth’s Richard spoke as her audience did. Historical phrases such as ‘moony tire’ (a pejorative description of one of Anne’s elaborate headdresses, taken from the Bible) and descriptions of the extravagant fashions worn at the time occur in the newspaper articles Beth had read, and reoccur in the drafts of the play, but as she reworked it, the language became more and more like the speech patterns of the 1930s.3 Beth also included short scenes throughout the play that featured Richard’s subjects – the common people of the time, rather than royalty – people her audience could identify with. The drafts of the play show the care and attention Beth put into this, with scenes and stage directions changed and cut from one draft to the next, while her attention to the modern speech rhythms that made her play so accessible to audiences is highlighted in the colour coding she chose to use in one draft: all the speech is typed in red, while stage directions are in black. Dates and annotations are pencilled in, showing that Beth went back to her notes to confirm details before making changes to fit historical accuracy or to help the ‘flow’ of the play.

  By late 1931 /early 1932 Richard was finished, and Beth sent it, via her agent Curtis Brown, direct to the actor who had inspired her: John Gielgud. Gielgud told the story many times of how he received the script, and always acknowledged the debt he owed to Gordon Daviot, as he always called Beth.4 As a rising star, Gielgud was receiving many scripts from people anxious to work with him, and he read Richard of Bordeaux backstage in the interval of another play he was working on. He liked it, but was concerned about some scenes which he found confusing, particularly the political discussions with a large number of characters. He wrote back to Gordon Daviot, suggesting a number of changes. In the meantime, he started work on another play which had been sent to him unsolicited: what was to become Musical Chairs.

  At this stage in his career, Gielgud carefully read all the scripts that were sent to him. The story of Musical Chairs, produced just before Richard of Bordeaux shows both that it was possible for an author to have a script performed in the West End with no prior experience – and that it was extremely unlikely for that to happen to Gordon Daviot.5 The script for Musical Chairs arrived in the same post as Richard of Bordeaux, but it came with a more personal covering letter. The playwright, Ronald A. Mackenzie, had been at prep school with John Gielgud. Gordon Daviot was writing under cover of her agent, but she had no links with the theatre world at all. After writing back to suggest the changes to Richard of Bordeaux, Gielgud forgot all about that play, and went on to produce Musical Chairs, backed by manager Bronson Albery, for a trial run of two performances at the Arts Theatre, starring Gielgud and directed by a Russian whom Gielgud admired greatly, Theodore Komisarjevsky. It was successful enough to then go on to a longer run at the Criterion Theatre in 1931.

  While Gielgud was working on Musical Chairs, he received another letter from ‘Gordon Daviot’, but he did not meet the author and had no idea that it was a woman living in the Highlands. Although Gielgud had almost forgotten the play since sending back his criticisms, he was pleased and interested to read that the unknown author had taken all his comments into account, and had carefully altered and improved the play. He was flattered by the idea that the play had been written specially for him, and interested in reprising the role of Richard in a different way. Following on from the success of Musical Chairs, Gielgud was keen to repeat the experiment of staging a new play and decided to move forward with planning a production of Richard of Bordeaux.

  Despite the similarities in the way the plays were picked up, the writer of Musical Chairs, the spiky Ronald Mackenzie, disliked Richard of Bordeaux intensely, according to Gielgud, finding it too romantic.6 Mackenzie, a complicated character, showed great promise as a playwright, but never fulfilled his potential, as he was tragically killed in a car accident just after Musical Chairs finished its run.

  Gielgud started work on Richard of Bordeaux while Musical Chairs was still running. Originally, he wanted to work again with the same director on both plays, but Komisarjevsky was abroad and declined. Gielgud decided to co-direct with Harcourt Williams, but they used the same backer as with Musical Chairs, Bronson Albery. With the backing in place, Gielgud then assembled the rest of his cast. For the other main part, Richard’s Queen Anne, Gielgud wanted the actress Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. Gwen was an established theatre actress with an excellent reputation, and she was to go on to become one of Gordon Daviot’s dearest friends. Gwen had made her stage debut in 1911 at the age of twenty, working initially as a singer as well as an actress. Although she is not such a well-known name today as her near-contemporaries Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, in her day she was an extremely famous and well-respected theatre actress, known for her beauty, her commitment to her profession, her appealing personality and her moving acting. While I was researching this book, I read and heard many things about Gwen, and not one person had anything negative to say about her.7 She was an absolutely charming woman, dedicated to her craft and generous to her friends. Gwen was particularly well known for her interpretation of Juliet, which she had played to great acclaim opposite Gielgud’s Romeo. It had been one of John Gielgud’s first major Shakespearian parts, and he had never forgotten the help and encouragement the older actress had given him – and he knew that the public had enjoyed their pairing and would want to see them play another romantic couple together.

  The same attention was paid to casting each of the numerous parts in the play, and, for all of these decisions, Gielgud acted without the input of the playwright. ‘Gordon Daviot’ did not appear in the theatre or meet the actors until the dress rehearsal of the play, and many of the cast, including Gielgud, were initially surprised to discover that she was a woman. This decision on Gordon’s part not to be involved in the minutiae of casting, rehearsing and backstage decisions wasn’t necessarily typical for a playwright. Many other writers preferred to be intricately involved in every stage of the process, desperate to protect their vision and their words from any potential changes. By contrast, Gordon, although happy to work on her writing, did not feel her personal presence was necessary in the theatre every day. A playwright whom Gordon Daviot was to become friendly with, Dodie Smith, whose first play Autumn Crocus had opened in 1931 and was still running a year later, had, when she discovered her play was going to be staged, immediately asked for a sabbatical from her day job, and had been on set from the very first day, challenging the director, choosing the actors, directing their movements and explaining nuances to them, and vocally expressing her opinion at every opportunity.8 Gordon Daviot’s more back seat approach was very popular with her director and star, as it gave him creative control – and Gordon appeared to be very pleased with the results herself. She never changed her way of working: once a play was written, she always handed it over with the confidence that her writing was strong enough that her vision would come through any changes or interpretation that a director or actor might choose to make. Her experiences with her first play influenced this working method considerably, and, although this confidence was perhaps misplaced with some of her later plays, with Richard of Bordeaux it was eminently successful. Since she had written Richard of Bordeaux specifically with Gielgud in mind, he played it exactly as she wanted.

  The completed play was staged for two nights at the Arts Theatre Club in London, on two consecutive Sundays in June 1931. These ‘semi-staged’ performances were a common test, to show backers how audiences and critics would react before the commitment of a longer run at a bigger theatre. The two test performances at the Arts Club were deemed successful enough for Richard of Bordeaux to be booked to pla
y at the New Theatre in London from February 1933 onwards. The New Theatre was owned by Bronson Albery, who had backed the initial two test performances. Albery worked closely with Gielgud at this time, continuing the family tradition of supporting actors whose work could bring in audiences to their two theatres. The Wyndham-Albery theatre dynasty is still going today; Gordon Daviot was being backed by some of the best people in the business.9 She was stepping effortlessly into the heart of theatre world.

  Added to this background of respectable theatre royalty, Gielgud brought in a swathe of new talent. Gielgud decided that Richard of Bordeaux was going to be a Full Production, with stunning scenery, elaborate costumes and spectacular set pieces on stage. In addition to deciding to direct and produce the play himself – something he was not an expert on – and working with a script by a new and untested playwright, Gielgud also insisted on hiring new costume and set designers, his friends The Motleys. The whole production of Richard of Bordeaux was filled with new, untried and enthusiastic talent, backed up with established and seasoned actors, and playing in a well-respected theatre. It was to be a winning combination.

  The new designers John Gielgud hired for Richard of Bordeaux contributed in no little way to its success. ‘The Motleys’ were three women: sisters Margaret and Sophia Harris, and their friend Elizabeth Montgomery, whom Gielgud had met in 1932 when he was involved in a production of Romeo and Juliet at Oxford University. The name ‘Motley’ came from a line in As You Like It: ‘Motley’s the only wear’, and the women specialized in elaborate costumes, which was perfect for Richard of Bordeaux. The outlandish fashions of the day are frequently mentioned in the text of Richard of Bordeaux and play an important part in establishing the characters and their background. It is difficult to imagine the play being effective if it had to be done as a ‘bare bones’ text-only production, and it is not the sort of play that could easily be revived in modern dress – unless there were outlandish modern versions of, for example, Anne’s enormous headgear.

  John Gielgud came to the Motleys initially only for the Sunday performances at the Arts Club, with some vague ideas about making the costumes in bright, primary colours, inspired by heraldic designs. The Motleys drove a hard bargain, saying that they would only be involved if they could design both the costumes and the sets, and making sure that they would be involved if Richard of Bordeaux went on to a longer run. They also dismissed the idea of bright colours, presenting John instead with a design featuring very little colour: an oatmeal, white, gold, and dusty blue palette, based on medieval tapestries.10 Gielgud loved it, and wrote enthusiastically to his leading lady Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies describing in detail the pale pink dress she would wear for her death scene, the colour co-ordination with the simple white background scenery, and his ideas for including a dramatic burning scene.11 Gielgud was never short of ideas, and Gordon Daviot, who had not been deeply involved in previous decisions, but was now working more closely with Gielgud on rewrites of the play, was not the only person to find him exasperating and difficult to work with.12 His continual new ideas could be difficult to assimilate into the normal routine of rehearsal. Gielgud wanted to include several tableaux scenes to show off the costumes and scenery, and only abandoned his idea of the scene with the burning down of Sheen Palace in a catastrophic dress rehearsal when the theatre nearly burnt down.13

  He was persuaded to drop the tableaux as well, when it was found in rehearsal that they slowed the pace of the story. It was at this rehearsal that Gordon Daviot made an appearance, surprising the cast and finally making her voice heard – though only to support Gielgud in his decisions.14 Gielgud had by this time dropped correspondence with Daviot’s agent, and was communicating with her directly. They worked together on some adaptation of the script after the Arts Club performances. He was always impressed by her professionalism, and a real friendship was starting to build. However, he did struggle to completely understand this quietly spoken woman from the Highlands, who was so different to the theatrical women of his acquaintance.

  Others, too, found Beth MacKintosh the Highlander a sharp contrast to the punchy, romantic writing of Gordon Daviot. Margaret Harris of the Motleys, always attuned to dress and appearance, remembered Gordon as a ‘very tweedy lady, with brogues, you know. And a hat. I seem to remember she wore a hat all the time’. Gordon was, as ever, smartly dressed for her trips to London. Margaret Harris felt that ‘[s]he didn’t sort of throw her weight about at all, she was very quiet and we didn’t really get to know her at all’.15 In common with most of the theatre people Beth was meeting, Margaret knew her only as ‘Gordon Daviot’ and wasn’t sure what her real name was. Gordon Daviot didn’t talk about where she came from, or her background, and Margaret was left with the impression that she had once been a history teacher, and could only marvel: ‘She was a strange little austere lady who had written this very romantic play’. Although Gordon was becoming friendly with John Gielgud, her hands-off approach meant that she was initially a little estranged from others involved in Richard of Bordeaux. It was a surreal experience: Beth was, on the one hand, a successful playwright, but, on the other hand, very much still rooted in her Inverness life with Colin and not involved with the development of the play.

  The rehearsals for Richard of Bordeaux did not always go smoothly.16 Daviot and Gielgud altered a fair amount of dialogue and moved some scenes around, and there were a number of strong personalities among the actors. The long cast list included a number of well-known faces, not only Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, but also established character actors such as Francis Lister, Richard Ainley and Donald Wolfit, and theatrical father and daughter Ben and Margaret Webster. The final dress rehearsal was a shambles. John Gielgud had almost lost his voice after all the shouting he had done in his capacity as director. There had been arguments amongst the cast. The Motleys were unhappy that Gielgud had sawed the top off one of their designs for the scenery, because he’d thought the audience in the gallery couldn’t see him properly.

  Theatre was hugely popular all over the country in the 1930s, with cinema, of course, still in its infancy. Gordon Daviot had shown in her writing that she was a huge fan of the London West End, with the knowledgeable and entertaining descriptions in The Man in the Queue. She would also have had plenty of opportunity to see both professional and amateur shows in Inverness. Touring productions came regularly to the town, and the amateur circuit was well established, with several companies. In schools, as a pupil and a teacher, Beth would have seen and been involved in productions, and students’ recollections of Anstey College included memories of theatre.17 The opening night for Richard of Bordeaux, however, was in a different league.

  Opening nights for the theatre in the 1930s were big events. Red carpets, full evening dress of long gowns for ladies and black tie for men, and crowds outside watching to see which of the aristocracy would glide up in long cars. Some people made a point of attending as many first nights as possible. A few years earlier, when Fred Astaire and his sister Adele had made their London stage debut, Fred had noted that black tie was rare, as audiences were usually in the smarter ‘white tie’, with women wearing accessories like diamond tiaras.18 Gielgud and his colleagues would have considered Astaire and his contemporaries like Tallulah Bankhead and Noel Coward to be the old guard – pre-cinema and not quite so serious – but the theatre retained much of their spirit. Astaire described the Gallery First Nighters, many of whom were still attending plays like Richard of Bordeaux, while producers like Binkie Beaumont, at one time part of Tallulah Bankhead’s entourage and soon to follow Basil Dean as Dodie Smith’s producer, provided yet more links with the glamorous 1920s theatre world. The New Theatre is now called the Noel Coward Theatre, and is still in business, retaining many of its original features. The Noel Coward, or New, backs onto the other Albery family theatre, the Wyndham, and they are connected by a linking corridor-bridge that runs above the alleyway between the two theatres. The narrow streets in the area are full of shops selling theatrical
memorabilia and other specialist goods like second-hand books and plays, and dance wear. This is the heart of theatreland, with a feeling that any of the cafés in the area could be peopled with actors and backstage staff taking a break from rehearsals. During the day, people queue at the box office to try and get last-minute tickets and returns for sell-out shows, and boards outside advertise the performances, with the actors’, writers’ and producers’ names in lights. The audience arrives early, crowding into the foyer as uniformed attendants stand in front of the doors to the auditorium, and making their way upstairs to one of the theatre’s bars. Champagne sits in ice buckets on tables, as well-dressed people meet friends and covertly glance in the large mirrors around the edges of the room to see who else is there. The theatre is still decorated as it was in the twentieth century, with photos of all the famous performances decorating the stairs down to the stalls. Two photos of Gwen and John, posing under the Motley’s simple archway scenery, are among them.

  Gordon Daviot attended her own opening night. The audience watched attentively during the performance, and, at the end, clapped enthusiastically. There were good comments flying around. Gordon went backstage and congratulated John, and then left. The actors, more used to the slow pace of backstage, waited, receiving flowers and telegrams of congratulations, and speaking to the newspapermen who wanted to know more about the play. A first night party was given by Dame May Whitty, whose husband and daughter were both in the play – Ben Webster was playing John of Gaunt, while Margaret Webster had small parts.19 It’s not clear whether the retiring Gordon Daviot was at this party. Cast members did remember the petite, unknown author making a short speech to the assembled company on the opening night, but this was probably at the theatre. May Whitty and Ben Webster’s parties were more informal, almost a theatrical drop-in where people were always welcome. Gordon was to become friendly with May and Ben’s daughter Margaret, but this friendship, as with Gordon’s other relationships in theatrical circles, took a little while to develop.