Old Vic, Russia & Poland Tour

leading from 

Work 1960s

Wearing white fur hat, Miss Christine
Finn, member of the Old Vic Company
leaving London for Moscow Russia to
play in MacBeth 1961
(sources: otherimages.com 
& arenapal.com)

 

 

 

 

Source: https://twitter.com/david_longford/status/1305799007034380288/photo/1

 

 

 

MOSCOW- BOUND
LONDON: Complete with attractive white fur hat, MISS CHRISTINE FINN, a member of the famous Old Vic Company, before she boarded an aircraft at London Airport this afternoon, to fly with the company today - four days behind schedule. They were late leaving because of hang ups caused by labour troubles in London and Belgium and they blamed it all on "Macbeth." And Old Vic spokesman said there is a tradition in the theatre that a  performance of "Macbeth" always brings ill-fortune. The company's gala opening performance on 9th January in Moscow .. is "Macbeth"
( London Bureau, 6th January 1961)

The Old Vic Off To Russia

The Old Vic Company will now make its delayed departure for Russia this afternoon from London Airport. The Moscow season will now open on Monday with  Macbeth, and although this is four days later than had originally been intended, three additional matinées are to be given, so that only two performances will be lost by the delay.

The Scenery and costumes have now arrived at Brest Litovsk on the Russian border. and are en route for Moscow by road; although the weather conditions are not good, the Russians are confident that there will be no cause to delay the opening on Monday.

(Times [London, England] 6 Jan. 1961: 13. The Times Digital Archive. )

MR KHRUSHCHEV SEES THE OLD VIC

Moscow, Jan 19 - Mr. Khrushchev's  appearance for the last act of Oscar  Wilde's The Importance of Being  Earnest set the seal tonight on the triumphant visit of the Old Vic company.

The Soviet Prime Minister was accompanied by Mr Mikoyan, First Deputy Prime Minister, and Mrs Ekaterina Furtseva, Minister of Culture. He joined  the audience at the Arts Theatre in six of the 14 curtain calls after the play. The company leave for Leningrad tomorrow for another week's tour

( News in Brief." Times [London, England] 20 Jan. 1961)

Mr Joss Ackland, Mr William Russell and Miss Jill 
Booty,who are appearing with the Old Vic company 
in Moscow, standing in Red Square
("Picture Gallery." Times [London, England]
11 Jan. 1961: 10. The Times Digital Archive.)

See above description
source : http://www.otherimages.com/

Old Vic Actors and Actresses from London look at snow bound
Moscow Russia behind them is Moscow University in Lenin Hills 1961 http://www.otherimages.com/

OLD VIC IN LENINGRAD

Leningrad , January 22nd. - A delighted audience of more than 2000 gave the Old Vic Company 16 curtain calls when they opened their week's season at the Palace  of Culture here today with a matinée performance of Macbeth. The play should have been presented last night, but a lorry carrying essential scenery and lighting equipment became "lost" between Moscow and Leningrad and did not arrive until two and a half hours before today's performance.  - Reuter

 (Times [London, England] 23 Jan. 1961: 16. The Times Digital Archive.)

OLD VIC IN WARSAW

Vic company played MacBeth in the Polish National Theatre tonought to a discriminating audience which knows its Shakespear, probably Poland's most popular playwright. Polish productions of Macbeath, Cymbeline and Richard III are in the current repertoire of three other Warsaw theatres

All the tickets for the Old Vic's performances, of Macbeth, and Shaw's Saint Joan here, following its triumphs in Moscow and Leningrad, were sold within hours of the box office opening 11 days ago. The popular Warsaw daily, Zycie Warszawy, replying to an irate reader, said only 400 tickets had been sold to the public for the five-day visit since most of them had been taken by the Ministry of Culture for sale to diplomatists, the press, and other privileged people.

The company took eight curtain calls in a six-minute ovation after it's performance of Macbeth. The evening was a triumph for Barbara Jefford as Lady Macbeth -  Reuter 

(Times [London, England] 1 Feb. 1961: 5.  The Times Digital Archive.)

Poster for the associated production on the tour "The Importance of Being Earnest"
with Christine Finn's named mention in the cast list although
the resolution of the image is too low for me to work out the role she played.
Source: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1169918/poster-unknown/

OLD VIC SUCCESS IN WARSAW

Warsaw, Feb 5. - The Old Vic Theatre Company left Warsaw for London today  after seven perfornaces of Macbeth and Saint Joan which "met with huge success", the Polish news agency P.A.P. reported. Critics had hailed the Old Vic's production of Saint Joan as "masterly", although one of them found it insufficiently "political".

The critics of the official communist party newspaper Trybuna Ludu described Miss Barbara Jefford, in the title rolse, as "the sun and moon of the performance' and added: "The Old Vic not only proved, but strengthened, our opinion about the great mastery of its actors." The critic of the youth newspaper Sztander Moldych said: "Shaw's saint joan could be payed with a more political interpretation, which

would have a great impact on the public. . . . Bernard Shaw intended to write a political play rather than a mere tragedy of Saint Joan." - Reuter

(Times [London, England] 6 Feb. 1961: 14. The Times Digital Archive.)

See newsreel footage of The Old Vic Company in Moscow 1961

Members of the Old Vic Company off to Moscow to play Macbeth 
 January 1961 (source www.otherimages.com) Miss Finn's head
 appears in the centre behind the shoulder of the central man

 closeup of previous image