After October

Playwright Rodney Ackland (1908-1991) was 21 when his first play Improper People was produced at the Arts Theatre Club in 1929. He became a leading West End playwright just three years later when John Gielgud transferred Strange Orchestra to the West End. He went on to many other West End successes, but his work fell into virtual obscurity for three decades until The Dark River (1943) was revived at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in 1984. Other revivals followed, most notably Absolute Hell (1952).