''Dear Octopus'' is a comedy by the playwright and novelist Dodie Smith. It opened at the Queen's Theatre, London on 14 September 1938. On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 the run was halted after 373 performances; after a spell in the provinces in early 1940 the play was brought back to London and played two further runs there until 31 August 1940. The play depicts the relationships between three generations of a large family. The "dear octopus" of the title refers to the family itself, whose tentacles its members can never escape.

Background

Smith had been a successful playwright throughout the 1930s. Her 1935 play ''Call It a Day'' had the longest run of any play by a woman dramatist up to that time, 509 performances."Obituary: Dodie Smith", ''The Times'', 27 November 1990, p. 20 The impresario

Binkie Beaumont Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont (27 March 190822 March 1973) was a British theatre manager and producer, sometimes referred to as the "éminence grise" of the West End theatre. Though he shunned the spotlight so that his name was not known widely among ...

H. M. Tennent Henry Moncrieff Tennent (18 February 1879 – 10 June 1941), was a British theatrical producer, impresario and songwriter. From 1929 to 1933, he mentored Binkie Beaumont, having previously worked with him in Cardiff. When Tennent, already the ge ...

secured the performing rights of ''Dear Octopus'' and offered his friend

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Brit ...

the romantic lead. Gielgud was happy to accept, having recently finished a season under his own management which had not been particularly profitable.Gielgud, pp. 49–50 Gielgud's co-star was

Marie Tempest Dame Mary Susan Etherington, (15 July 1864 – 15 October 1942), known professionally as Marie Tempest, was an English singer and actress. Tempest became a famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, s ...

. The role of the retiring young employee who is in love with the hero was originally planned for Celia Johnson or Diana Wynyard, but was played by

Angela Baddeley Madeleine Angela Clinton-Baddeley, CBE (4 July 1904 – 22 February 1976) was an English stage and television actress, best-remembered for her role as household cook Mrs. Bridges in the period drama '' Upstairs, Downstairs''. Her stage career ...

to great critical approval. The play opened in London after a provincial tour.

the real first night, at the Queen's Theatre on 14 September 1938, began gloomily. The crisis in Czechoslovakia was on everyone's mind. During the first half, the house was subdued, faces grave and laughs few. It seemed to have become dull. Then, in the first interval, a dramatic ''deus ex machina'', Charles Morgan, arrived from ''The Times'' with news, which spread like wildfire through the theatre, that Neville Chamberlain was flying to meet Hitler at Berchtesgaden. "It was as if the whole audience breathed a sigh of relief. And from then on the play went superbly, and built to a magnificent reception."

Original cast

*Charles Randolph – Leon Quartermaine *Dora Randolph –

*Hilda Randolph – Nan Munro *Margery Harvey – Madge Compton *Cynthia Randolph – Valerie Taylor *Nicholas Randolph –

(later replaced by Hugh Williams) *Hugh Randolph – John Justin *Gwen (Flouncy) Harvey – Sylvia Hammond *William Harvey – Pat Sylvester *Kathleen (Scrap) Kenton –

Muriel Pavlow Muriel Lilian Pavlow (27 June 1921 – 19 January 2019) was an English actress. Her mother was French and her father Russian. Film and television career Muriel was born in Lewisham, south-east London, to Boris Pavlov, a Russian émigré and ...

*Edna Randolph – Una Venning *Kenneth Harvey – Felix Irwin *Laurel Randolph – Jean Ormonde *Belle Schlessinger –

Kate Cutler Kate Ellen Louisa Cutler (14 August 1864 – 14 May 1955) was an English singer and actress, known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an ''ingénue'' in musical comedies, and later as a character actress in comic and dramati ...

*Grace Fenning (Fenny) –

*Nanny –

Annie Esmond Annie Esmond (27 September 1873 – 4 January 1945) was a British stage and film actress. Esmond was born in Surrey, England. She made her stage debut in pantomime in Sheffield in 1891 and later appeared on the American as well as British stage ...

*Gertrude – Margaret Murray ::Source: ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

Plot

As the critics pointed out, there is little plot in the play. ''The Times'' summarised the piece thus:

Critical reception

In ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'',

Ivor Brown Ivor John Carnegie Brown CBE (25 April 1891 – 22 April 1974) was a British journalist and man of letters. Biography Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases ...

agreed with his anonymous ''Times'' colleague about the lack of plot. He commented that the romance of Fenny and Nicholas provided the play "with what plot it possesses; for the most part it is a family parade offering familiar pleasures. There seems to be a little of everything that playgoers like, from Cinderella in her corner to fun in the nursery, from little talks on God to sentimental speeches on Granny's Golden Wedding."Brown, Ivor. "The Week's Theatres", ''The Observer'', 18 September 1938, p. 13 The reviewer in ''The Manchester Guardian'' noted that at a poignant scene between the matriarch, the prodigal daughter and an innocent grandchild "handkerchiefs are discreetly a-flutter among the audience in numbers that must delight any dramatist.""Dear Octopus at the Opera House", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 6 September 1934, p. 11

Revivals and adaptations

The play was revived in the West End in 1967 at the Haymarket Theatre with

Cicely Courtneidge Dame Esmerelda Cicely Courtneidge, (1 April 1893 – 26 April 1980) was an Australian-born British actress, comedian and singer. The daughter of the producer and playwright Robert Courtneidge, she was appearing in his productions in the West En ...

and

Jack Hulbert John Norman Hulbert (24 April 189225 March 1978) was a British actor, director, screenwriter and singer, specializing primarily in comedy productions, and often working alongside his wife (Dame) Cicely Courtneidge. Biography Born in Ely, Ca ...

heading a cast that included Lally Bowers,

Ursula Howells Ursula Howells (17 September 1922 – 16 October 2005) was an English actress whose elegant presence kept her much in demand for roles in film and television. Life and career Howells was born in London, the daughter of composer Herbert Howells, ...

Richard Todd Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd (11 June 19193 December 2009) was an Irish-British actor known for his leading man roles of the 1950s. He received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor n ...

and Joyce Carey.Hope-Wallace, Philip. "Dear Octopus at the Haymarket Theatre", ''The Guardian'', 8 December 1967, p. 9 In 1943 the play was turned into a film of the same title directed by

Harold French Harold French (23 April 1897 – 19 October 1997) was an English film director, screenwriter and actor. Biography After training at the Italia Conti School, he made his acting debut age 12, in a production of ''The Winter's Tale''. As an ...

and starring

Margaret Lockwood Margaret Mary Day Lockwood, Order of the British Empire, CBE (15 September 1916 – 15 July 1990), was an English actress. One of Britain's most popular film stars of the 1930s and 1940s, her film appearances included ''The Lady Vanishes (1938 ...

and

Michael Wilding Michael Charles Gauntlet Wilding (23 July 1912 – 8 July 1979) was an English stage, television, and film actor. He is best known for a series of films he made with Anna Neagle; he also made two films with Alfred Hitchcock, '' Under Capric ...

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dear Octopus (play) 1938 plays British plays adapted into films Plays by Dodie Smith West End plays