London Royal Court Theatre – The Adding Machine – 1928 L Olivier

About this The Adding Machine theatre programme

A theatre programme for The Adding Machine at the Royal Court Theatre, London, from 1928. The cast list includes a young Laurence Olivier alongside Basil Dyne, Frank Randell and Robert Lang. Elmer Rice’s expressionist play follows Mr Zero, a downtrodden bookkeeper replaced by a machine, and was a bold choice for the London stage of the day. Programmes showing Olivier at the very start of his career are highly sought after, making this a superb piece of theatre memorabilia for collectors of British stage history.

Condition: V Good, lcfld, lcr, tiny ni on bottom right corner only (what the codes mean)

Did you know?

• Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine was first produced in New York in 1923 and is one of the best-known American expressionist plays.
• Laurence Olivier was in his early twenties in 1928, a year before his first West End success and long before he became the first director of the National Theatre.
• The Royal Court in Sloane Square later became famous as the home of the English Stage Company, which staged Look Back in Anger there in 1956.