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Performing Arts
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[WODEHOUSE, P.G.] [GODFREY, Arthur E.] LEHMANN, Liza
Selection From Sergeant Brue
London: Hopwood & Crew, 1904
4to, pp. 16. Original paper wrappers, printed in black.
First edition. PRODUCER FRANK CURZON'S COPY, WITH HIS OWNERSHIP SIGNATURE TO... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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[WODEHOUSE, P.G.] CARYLL, Ivan and MONCKTON, Lionel
The Girls Of Gottenberg
London: Chapell & Co., 1908
4to, pp. 176, 4pp. publisher's advertisements bound in at rear. Original illustrated stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front and rear... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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AUDEN, W.H.
The Ballad of Barnaby
New York: G. Schirmer, 1970
4to, pp. 53. Original illustrated stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front and rear panels.
First edition.
In his... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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BURTON, Richard
Meeting Mrs. Jenkins
New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966
8vo, pp. 24. Original tan three-quarter boards, lettered in gilt to spine and with device in gilt to front panel. Photographic... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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STOPPARD, Tom
Rosencrantz and Guldenstern Are Dead
London: Faber, 1967
8vo, pp. 96. Original card wrappers, printed dustwrapper.
First edition, softbound issue, published simultaneously with its hardbound... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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HAMILTON, Patrick
Souvenir of Rope
London: Constable, 1929
Small 8vo, pp. 90, 4pp. publisher's advertisements bound in at rear. Pale green stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front panel and... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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SHAFFER, Peter
Amadeus
London: Andre Deutsch, 1980
Small 8vo, pp. 124. Original red boards, lettered in silver to spine. Errata slip to p. 109. Photographic dustwrapper, portrait of the author to... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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SHAFFER, Peter
Equus
London: Andre Deutsch, 1973
Small 8vo, pp. 105. Original orange boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Photographic dustwrapper.
First edition. Film maker Tony... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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GROTOWSKI, Jerzy
Towards A Poor Theatre
Holstebro, Denmark: Odin Teatrets Forlag, 1968
8vo, pp. 262. Original printed stiff paper wrappers.
First edition, SIGNED BY GROTOWSKI ON TITLE PAGE. With a... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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SHAFFER, Peter
The Royal Hunt Of The Sun
London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964
8vo, pp. 84. Original brown boards, lettered in silver to spine. Photographic dustwrapper.
First edition.
Shaffer's first... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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SUTHERLAND, Joan
ALS To Leo McKern
Montreux: N.p., 1993
2pp. ALS on headed notepaper ('Joan Sutherland' over a floral design, light red on cream). Original envelope present, address handwritten, postmarked 23.11.93. Colour photograph of Sutherland and McKern on location for On Our Selection in Braidwood, Australia, taken the following year.
2pp. ALS FROM JOAN SUTHERLAND TO LEO MCKERN, FONDLY REMEMBERING THEIR RECENT MEETING AND LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING TOGETHER ON DAD AND DAVE: ON OUR SELECTION.
In 1994, four years after her retirement from the operatic stage, Dame Joan Sutherland returned to her native Australia to make what would turn out to be her only dramatic film: Dad and Dave:On Our Selection, written and directed by George Whaley. Based on the writings of Steele Rudd, the film, set in Queensland at the end of the nineteenth century, starred Geoffrey Rush, Ray Barrett, Noah Taylor -- and Leo McKern as Dad Rudd. Joan Sutherland played Mother Rudd, with not entirely satisfactory results, and the film, made to mark the centenary of the Australian film industry, was a failure with both critics and paying audiences.
This letter dates from the early days of Sutherland and McKern's association, is written on Sutherland's personalised notepaper and sent from her home in the Swiss village of Les Avants, and looks forward, albeit nervously, to the forthcoming shoot:
'[I]f nothing else convinced me to become involved in the film your honest, down-to-earthness did. I hope, if it all gets sorted out that I shan't be too much out of my depth!'
Accompanying the letter is a photograph, taken on location the following year, of a laughing Sutherland and McKern in costume.
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[McKern, Leo]
First Night Telegram to Leo McKern from Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh
Nottingham: N.p., 1959
Greetings telegram, stamp-dated 10 August 1959 to reverse.
FIRST NIGHT TELEGRAM, DATED 10 AUGUST 1959, TO LEO McKERN FROM LAURENCE OLIVIER AND HIS WIFE VIVIEN LEIGH: 'Great good wishes for huge success, Vivien and Laurence Olivier.'
'[McKern's] second, and last ever, directing job was the Australian prize-winning stage play The Shifting Heart by Richard Beynon, a story of Italian immigrants living in Collingwood, then a slum suburb of Melbourne, and their struggle for acceptance and survival in a racist community. ... It's UK season was at the Nottingham Theatre Royal from 10 August 1959, then the Duke of York's in the West End -- a joint venture by Sir Laurence Olivier's company and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Olivier had invited McKern to direct.'
George Whaley, Leo 'Rumpole' McKern: The Accidental Actor [USNW Press, 2009]
The show received mixed reviews, and McKern himself felt he'd done a bad job. On the up side, he kept the telegram sent to him by one of twentieth century theatre's most glamorous couples.
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[DENCH, Judi] [McKERN, Leo]
Handwritten Card from Judi Dench to Leo McKern
London: N.p., N.d. [1989]
Greetings card.
CARD FROM JUDI DENCH TO LEO McKERN ON THE OPENING OF THE CHERRY ORCHARD AT THE ALDWYCH THEATRE ON 24 OCTOBER 1989.
Dench played Ranyevskaya in this Michael Frayn translation, and was joined in the production by Leo's daughter Abigail as Yepihodova:
'...[A]t last, I get to work with Abigail -- who is a wonder. What a divine girl and how good she is. It's just the most lovely company and we all love doing the show. ... Mike and Finty join me in sending great love to you, Judi.'
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CUSHING, Peter
TLS to Leo McKern
Whitstable: N.p., 1993
1 p. TLS on Peter Cushing's personalised stationery. Unfolded.
TLS FAN LETTER FROM PETER CUSHING TO LEO McKERN DATED 16 SEPTEMBER 1993, LESS THAN A YEAR BEFORE CUSHING'S DEATH.
A warm, effusive fan letter from cinema's greatest vampire-slayer, it reads:
'Dear Leo McKern,
It's that fan again! Some years ago I wrote to you about your superb 'Rumpole' series, and received a most charming letter of thanks.
My admiration for your work goes back to the play (and subsequent film) 'A Man For All Seasons', and you have never failed to captivate me. Having seen you recently in 'Travelling North', and again the other evening in 'A Foreign Field' I just had to write once more.There is a 'je-ne-sais-quoi' quality about your performances which touches the heartstrings, and if you don't receive some public recognition eventually, there's no justice in this world!
Thank you, dear fellow, for such pleasure. It makes me very proud to remember we worked together in 1956 in 'Time Without Pity', with Michael Redgrave and Ann Todd. (Long ago and far away!)
With kindest wishes, and may God's blessing be with you always.
As ever,
(sgd) Peter Cushing O.B.E. Whitstable, Kent'
(The 'public recognition' Cushing refers to is of course not audience approval, but the possible future conferring of honours on McKern: Cushing himself was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1989).
A touching salute to a fellow actor from one of the most distinctive and distinguished figures of British cinema.
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[McKERN, Leo] [HERRMANN, Edward] selected by WAVELL, A. P.
Other Men's Flowers
London: Cape, 1992
8vo, pp. 448. Original burgundy boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Dustwrappers lettered in red and black to front panel and spine.
Reprinted... [please click on the image or book title for more details]"If" -- the complete version will be sent! E.'.
This last refers to a referenced parody of Kipling's poem which begins: 'If you can keep your girl, when all around you, / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...'. In the film Hermann and McKern's characters discover that they have been in love with the same woman all their lives.
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HASTINGS, Michael
Tom And Viv
London: Royal Court Theatre, 1984
8vo, pp. 41. Original illustrated stiff paper wrappers.
First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO HIS ACCOUNTANT ON FRONT FREE... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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AUDEN, W.H. and ISHERWOOD, Christopher
The Ascent Of F6
London: Faber, 1936
8vo, pp. 123. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt on spine. Illustrated dustwrapper.
First edition, one of 2000 copies.
First... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
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[POWELL, Michael] GIBBON, Monk
The Tales Of Hoffmann
London: Saturn Press, 1951
4to, pp. 96. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt on spine. Cockerel device in gilt to front panel.
First edition, INSCRIBED BY... [please click on the image or book title for more details]
