Bright Lights Between Wars

The titles of Elswyth’s plays tell why an American’s works were produced in London’s West End: The Tudor Wench, Young Mr. Disraeli, Queen’s Folly. At a time of intense British interest in British history, these historical dramas quite literally fit the bill, no matter their author’s nationality.

The Tudor Wench, which Elswyth researched during her 1932 trip, opened at the Embassy Theatre in October 1933, then moved to the Alhambra.

Young Mr. Disraeli had its premiere at the Kingsway in 1934 and transferred to the Piccadilly Theatre. To a writer specialising in historical romances, Britain’s charismatic prime minister was the perfect subject. Disraeli not only looked like a fictional heart-throb in his youth, he also wrote romantic novels to earn badly needed money. The production’s star, Derrick de Marney, is unknown today but the play brought him to the attention of Alfred Hitchcock who cast him as the male lead in the 1937 film Young and Innocent.

Elswyth visited a dozen great houses, including Compton Wynyates (pictured below), for Queen’s Folly. In the summer of 1939, the stage version “seemed on the point of getting somewhere at last…we were daring to look ahead.” But war soon dashed her hopes.