Doria Paston (née Dorothy Paston Fisher, 1893,

Kandy Kandy ( si, මහනුවර ''Mahanuwara'', ; ta, கண்டி Kandy, ) is a major city in Sri Lanka located in the Central Province. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills ...

- 1989,

East Lambrook East Lambrook is an English village situated in the civil parish of Kingsbury Episcopi, within the South Somerset district of Somerset. It is noted particularly for its manor gardens. Manor East Lambrook Manor is a small 15th-century manor hous ...

) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

actress and

set designer Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly train ...

who worked with Terence Gray at the

Cambridge Festival Theatre The Theatre Royal was built in the Barnwell suburb of Cambridge, England, in 1816. It closed later that century but reopened as the Cambridge Festival Theatre from 1926 until 1935. The building, in which part of the interior of the theatre surv ...

in the 1920s and 1930s. With Gray she co-published the programmes for the plays they put on as the ''Cambridge Festival Theatre Review''.

Early life

She was born Dorothy the daughter of Lionel Paston Fisher and his wife Emma Wood Locket, who were married in Kandy, Ceylon in 1893.

Work at Cambridge Festival Theatre

The architect

Hugh Casson Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson (23 May 1910 – 15 August 1999) was a British architect. He was also active as an interior designer, as an artist, and as a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for t ...

learnt set design from her, although he did not share her commitment to abstract and

cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

set design.

Godfishers

Doria settled in East Lambrook with her friend Molly Godlonton. The two women were known as the Godfishers and played a role in the community life the

Kingsbury Episcopi Kingsbury Episcopi is a village and civil parish on the River Parrett in Somerset, England, situated north west of Yeovil in the South Somerset district. The village has a population of 1,307. The parish includes the villages of West Lambrook, ...

, where East Lambrook is located. Doria provided paintings while Molly took photographs, many of which have been archived by a local resident. They organised a number of exhibitions of their pictures to raise money for guide dogs for the blind.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paston, Doria 1893 births 1989 deaths 20th-century English actors Set designers English people of Sri Lankan descent Sri Lankan people of English descent