Editing Ralph Richardson (section)

===Early career===
{{Hatnote|Details of Richardson's work, 1921–29: [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrS21|Stage]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrR21|Radio]]}}
The heyday of the touring [[actor-manager]] was nearing its end but some companies still flourished. As well as Benson's, there were those of [[John Martin-Harvey|Sir John Martin-Harvey]], [[Ben Greet]], and, only slightly less prestigious, [[Charles Doran]].{{#tag:ref|Doran had been a member of Benson's company for twenty years before setting up on his own account in 1920.<ref>[http://shakespeare.emory.edu/actordisplay.cfm?actorid=269 "Frank Doran"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201212556/http://shakespeare.emory.edu/actordisplay.cfm?actorid=269 |date=1 February 2014 }}, Shakespeare and the Players, retrieved 13 January 2014</ref> He had a keen eye for rising talent, and among his recruits were [[Cecil Parker]], [[Edith Sharpe]], [[Norman Shelley]], [[Abraham Sofaer]], [[Francis L. Sullivan|Francis{{space}}L Sullivan]] and [[Donald Wolfit]].<ref>Trewin, J C. "A man of many parts", ''[[The Illustrated London News]]'', 25 December 1982, p. 61; and Hobson, p. 11</ref>|group= n}} Richardson wrote to all four managers: the first two did not reply; Greet saw him but had no vacancy; Doran engaged him, at a wage of £3 a week.<ref>Miller, pp. 20–21</ref> Richardson made his first appearance as a professional actor at the Marina Theatre, [[Lowestoft]], in August 1921, as Lorenzo in ''[[The Merchant of Venice]]''.<ref name=roles>List of roles in Tanitch, pp. 122–125; and Miller, pp. 357–366</ref> He remained with Doran's company for most of the next two years, gradually gaining more important roles, including Banquo in ''Macbeth'' and Mark Antony in ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]''.<ref name=roles/>

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Doran's company specialised in the classics, principally [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]. After two years of period costumes Richardson felt the urge to act in a modern work.<ref>Miller, p. 24</ref> He left Doran in 1923 and toured in a new play, ''[[Outward Bound (play)|Outward Bound]]'' by [[Sutton Vane]]. He returned to the classics in August 1924, in [[Nigel Playfair]]'s touring production of ''[[The Way of the World]]'', playing Fainall.<ref name=roles/> While on that tour he married Muriel Hewitt, a young member of Doran's company, known to him as "Kit".<ref>Miller, p. 25</ref> To his great happiness, the two were able to work together for most of 1925, both being engaged by [[Barry Jackson (director)|Sir Barry Jackson]] of the [[Birmingham Repertory Theatre]] for a touring production of ''[[The Farmer's Wife (play)|The Farmer's Wife]]''. From December of that year they were members of the main repertory company in Birmingham.<ref>Miller, p. 26</ref> Through Jackson's chief director, the veteran taskmaster [[H. K. Ayliff]], Richardson "absorbed the influence of older contemporaries like [[Gerald du Maurier]], [[Charles Hawtrey (actor born 1858)|Charles Hawtrey]] and [[Mrs. Patrick Campbell|Mrs Patrick Campbell]]."<ref name=guardianobit>Obituary, ''[[The Guardian]]'', 11 October 1983, p. 11</ref> Hewitt was seen as a rising star but Richardson's talents were not yet so apparent;<ref name=m327>Morley, p. 327</ref> he was allotted supporting roles such as Lane in ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'' and Albert Prossor in ''[[Hobson's Choice (play)|Hobson's Choice]]''.<ref name=roles/>

Richardson made his London debut in July 1926 as the stranger in ''[[Oedipus at Colonus]]'' in a Sunday-night performance at the [[Scala Theatre]], with a cast including [[Percy Walsh]], [[John Laurie]] and [[D. A. Clarke-Smith]].<ref>"The Greek Play Society", ''The Times'', 13 July 1926, p. 12</ref> He then toured for three months in [[Eden Phillpotts]]'s comedy ''Devonshire Cream'' with Jackson's company led by [[Cedric Hardwicke]].<ref>"Princes Theatre: Devonshire Cream", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 24 August 1926, p. 11</ref>

When Phillpotts's next comedy, ''Yellow Sands'', was to be mounted at the [[Haymarket Theatre]] in the [[West End theatre|West End]], Richardson and his wife were both cast in good roles. The play opened in November 1926 and ran until September 1928; with 610 performances it was the longest London run of Richardson's entire career.<ref name=m327/><ref name=whoswho>[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U168526 "Richardson, Sir Ralph David"], ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, retrieved 16 December 2008. {{subscription}}</ref> During the run Muriel Hewitt began to show early symptoms of [[encephalitis lethargica]], a progressive and ultimately fatal illness.<ref>O'Connor, pp. 56, 58–59</ref>

[[File:Peggy-Ashcroft-1936-2.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Peggy Ashcroft]] in 1936, near the beginning of her long professional association with Richardson]]
Richardson left the run of ''Yellow Sands'' in March 1928 and rejoined Ayliff, playing Pygmalion in ''[[Back to Methuselah]]'' at the [[Royal Court Theatre]]; also in the cast was a former colleague from the Birmingham Repertory, [[Laurence Olivier]].<ref>Clough, p. 52</ref> The critics began to notice Richardson and he gained some favourable reviews.{{#tag:ref|Horace Horsnell of ''The Observer'' wrote of "a stroke of something like genius" in Richardson's performance in ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'', "and the idiosyncrasy that so refreshed the character was so cleverly sustained that one felt that Shakespeare would have enjoyed it too."<ref>Hobson, p. 31</ref> [[St. John Greer Ervine|St John Ervine]], who disliked modern-dress productions of Shakespeare, nevertheless praised both the Richardsons.<ref>Ervine, St John. "At the Play", ''The Observer'', 6 May 1928, p. 15</ref>|group= n}} As Tranio in Ayliff's modern-dress production of ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'', Richardson played the character as a breezy [[cockney]],{{#tag:ref|Cockney according to the contemporary critics, though Richardson later said that he had been playing the part as an "outrageous Australian";<ref name=m33>Miller, p. 33</ref> accents were not his strongest suit.<ref>O'Connor, p. 60</ref>|group= n}} winning praise for turning a usually dreary role into something richly entertaining.<ref name=m327/> For the rest of 1928 he appeared in what Miller describes as several unremarkable modern plays.<ref name=m33/> For much of 1929 he toured South Africa in [[Gerald Lawrence]]'s company in three period costume plays, including ''[[The School for Scandal]]'', in which he played Joseph Surface.<ref name=roles/> The sole venture into [[musical comedy]] of his career was in ''Silver Wings'' in the West End and on tour. It was not a personal triumph; the director's final injunction to the company was, "For God's sake don't let Richardson sing".<ref name=m33/> In May 1930 Richardson was given the role of Roderigo in ''[[Othello]]'' in what seemed likely to be a prestigious production, with [[Paul Robeson]] in the title role. The biographer [[Ronald Hayman]] writes that though a fine singer, "Robeson had no ear for blank verse" and even [[Peggy Ashcroft]]'s superb performance as Desdemona was not enough to save the production from failure.<ref>Gielgud (2000), p. 157; and Hayman, p. 63</ref> Ashcroft's notices were laudatory, while Richardson's were mixed; they admired each other and worked together frequently during the next four decades.<ref>Miller, p. 34</ref>