The Trial of Donald Wolfit

Sir Donald Wolfit was a true titan of the stage, renowned for his barn-storming, no-nonsense acting style, for taking Shakespeare to the provinces ? and for ensuring London’s theatreland never fell totally dark, even during the worst of the Blitz. To many theatre-goers he was a legend, who restored physicality, personality and power to live theatre; to an equal and opposite number, however, he was an anachronism and a joke, a laughable, hammy relic of a bygone age. For half a century, Wolfit’s gainsayers have held the floor, largely unchallenged. Now, finally, the last of the great actor-managers can answer the charges his critics have long laid against him, all in characteristically vigorous Wolfit style.