George Devine - Pre-War Years

Pre-War Years

Although Devine managed to get a certain amount of work as an actor, both at the Old Vic Theatre and for John Gielgud, whose directing career had really taken off after the OUDS Romeo and Juliet, he was initially by no means a great success. Rather overweight, dark and foreign-looking, he did not fit the conventional stereotype, and tended to play relatively small character parts. Always interested in France (he spoke the language perfectly) and in French theatre, he suggested to Gielgud that they should invite the French director Michel Saint-Denis to come to London in 1935 to direct a London version of his successful production of Andre Obey's Noe (Noah). This proved to be the beginning of a close and fruitful partnership between the two men. Saint-Denis remained in London and, together with Devine and their friends Marius Goring and Glen Byam Shaw, they founded The London Theatre Studio, which offered training not only to actors and directors but also to stage designers. Run by the Motleys, this was the first course in Britain to offer training in set and costume design. Jocelyn Herbert, who was later to become part of Devine's life, was a student on the course. At the end of the 1930s Devine finally got the chance to direct a play himself. His first professional production was an adaptation by Alec Guiness of Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations, which played at the Queen's Theatre in 1939 and was later adapted into the celebrated 1946 film of the same name, directed by David Lean. Devine also directed a successful production of a stage version of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca at the Queen's Theatre in 1939.