L’Enfant Prodigue. November 1937

The Stage, London. 4 November 1937

This tiny clipping is a notice of a forthcoming mime play, called L’Enfant Prodigue – the role for which Irene Mawer was most famous. The show was due to run for six public performances, plus one private performance at which the funds raised would be donated to the Institute of Mime.

Included in the cast were Ruby Ginner, Joyce Ruscoe, Archie Harradine, Isabel Salt and Edward Wilberforce.

Elsewhere in my notes, I have a 1935 review of a film version of L’Enfant Prodigue and one of the actors was Archie Harradine (presumably the same actor as in the production of the mime play). In the film version, Mr Harradine played the father of Pierrot, however in the Ginner-Mawer theatre production, that role was taken by Ruby Ginner.

I have included three clippings in the attached photo because two of them are folded over and it isn’t possible to fully read the information.

However, in the clipping entitled Chanticleer Theatre, we can learn that Archie Harradine (mentioned above), played the part of the Baron.

This was obviously a large undertaking for Irene Mawer. I haven’t read anywhere about the director, so I would expect that it was Irene who directed, as well as starred in the performance. Miss Mawer has been forgotten by the writers of theatre history. Please help to rectify this by commenting and sharing this post so that the search engines will find her more easily in the future. Thank you.