Robert William Speaight (; 1904 – 1976) was a British actor and writer, and the brother of George Speaight, the puppeteer. Speaight studied under Elsie Fogerty at the

Central School of Speech and Drama The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama was founded by Elsie Fogerty in 1906, as The Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students. It became a ...

, then based in the Royal Albert Hall, London. He was an early performer (from 1927) in

radio play Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...

s. He came to prominence as Becket in the first production of T. S. Eliot's ''

Murder in the Cathedral ''Murder in the Cathedral'' is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot, first performed in 1935, that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II in 1170. Eliot drew heavily on the writin ...

''. He went on to

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

an roles and to direct. He played the title role in the first broadcast in 1941-42 of the radio drama ''

The Man Born to Be King ''The Man Born to Be King'' is a radio drama based on the life of Jesus, produced and broadcast by the BBC during the Second World War. It is a play cycle consisting of twelve plays depicting specific periods in Jesus' life, from the events ...

''. He also wrote criticism and essays, works on the theatre and biography. He was a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

convert, and biographer of

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...

and

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...

. In the case of Gill, a personal friend, he suppressed material about Gill's sexual interests, which would come out only in the 1989 biography by

Fiona MacCarthy Fiona MacCarthy (23 January 1940 – 29 February 2020) was a British biographer and cultural historian best known for her studies of 19th- and 20th-century art and design. Early life and education Fiona MacCarthy was born in Sutton, Surrey in ...

. He married the Welsh actress Evelyn Bowen, with whom he had a son; they separated in 1939. Evelyn later married the celebrated Irish writer Frank O'Connor, with whom she had three children.

Works

*Mutinous Wind (1932) *The Lost Hero (1934) novel *Nurse Cavell (1934) play, role of the German spy in C.S. Forester's play about the life of

Edith Cavell Edith Louisa Cavell ( ; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Be ...

*Legend of Helena Vaughan (1936) novel *The Angel in the Mist (1936) *St. Thomas of Canterbury (1938) *Acting: its idea and tradition (1939) *The Unbroken Heart (1939) *Since 1939 - Drama, the Novel, Poetry, Prose Literature (1949) with John Hayward, Henry Reed,

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by th ...

– earlier as pamphlet ''Drama Since 1939'' (1947) *

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...

(1954) *

William Poel William Poel (1852-1934) was an English actor, theatrical manager and dramatist best known for his presentations of Shakespeare. Life and career A son of William Pole, he grew up among Pre-raphaelite painters and reportedly sat for William Holm ...

and the Elizabethan Revival (1954) *Nature in Shakespearian Tragedy (1955) *Life of

(1957) *Letters from Hilaire Belloc (1958) editor *Christian Theatre (1960) volume 124 in the 20th Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism *William Rothenstein: The Portrait of an Artist in His Time (1962) *

Ronald Knox Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox wa ...

: The Priest, The Writer (1965) with Thomas Corbishley *The Life of

(1966) *

Teilhard de Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philo ...

: A Biography (1967) *Teilhard de Chardin: Re-Mythologization. Three Papers (1970) with Robert V. Wilshire and J. V. Langmead Casserley *Vanier: Soldier, Diplomat and Governor General; A Biography (1970) on

Georges Vanier Georges-Philias Vanier (23 April 1888 – 5 March 1967) was a Canadian military officer and diplomat who served as governor general of Canada, the first Quebecer and second Canadian-born person to hold the position. Vanier was born and ...

*The Property Basket. Recollections of a Divided Life (1970) autobiography *A Bridges-Adams Letter Book (1971) editor *Essays by Divers Hands Vol. XXXVII (1972) editor *Shakespeare on the Stage; an Illustrated History of Shakespearian Performance (1973) *

Georges Bernanos Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos (; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as defe ...

: A Study of the Man and the Writer (1974) *The Companion Guide to Burgundy (1975) *

François Mauriac François Charles Mauriac (, oc, Francés Carles Mauriac; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the'' Académie française'' (from 1933), and laureate of the Nobel Prize ...

: A Study of the Writer and the Man (1976) *Shakespeare - the Man and his Achievement (1977)

Recordings

*''

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", commonly known as "Prufrock", is the first professionally published poem by American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). Eliot began writing "Prufrock" in February 1910, and it was first publishe ...

''( T. S. Eliot) *''

The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare " ...

'' (T. S. Eliot) *''

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...

'' (T. S. Eliot) *'' Ash Wednesday'' (T. S. Eliot) *Thomas a-Becket's Sermon from ''

'' (T. S. Eliot) *''

Four Quartets ''Four Quartets'' is a set of four poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published over a six-year period. The first poem, ''Burnt Norton'', was published with a collection of his early works (1936's ''Collected Poems 1909–1935''). After a f ...

'' (T. S. Eliot)

Filmography

*
London 1942
' (1943) - narrator

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speaight, Robert English male radio actors English biographers English literary critics 1904 births 1976 deaths 20th-century biographers 20th-century British male actors Commanders of the Order of the British Empire