“Hamlet”


Ernest Thesiger as Osric



Haymarket Theatre, London

April 22, 25, 1930

in aid of the Actor’s Benevolent Fund,

the Actors Orphanage Fund,

the Theatrical Ladies’ Guild, and

the Denville Hall for Elderly Actors

May 19

royal command performance in aid of King George’s Pension Fund for Actors and Actresses

 

“Oh, Ernest Thesiger!  Colin Clive’s Laertes is generally talked about - so bad was it - while Ernest Thesiger, as Osric, made him look like a perfect lady.  I do not think the Elizabethans were as purringly gentle as that.  Ernest Thesiger should not do this sort of thing.  It may do for a Cochran revue, but not the Haymarket Theatre.  Of course, the Shakespeareans are dying.  There is no one to teach them now.  Ainley and Lang and a few others are the last.  Cecil DeMille has done in that sort of thing.  The Cecil DeMilles of God grind slowly!”

“London as it Looks” by Hannen Swaffer, Variety, May 7, 1930