''Young Wives' Tale'' is a 1949

comedy play Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy endi ...

by the British writer

Ronald Jeans Ronald Jeans (10 May 1887 – 16 May 1973) was a British playwright with a career spanning nearly 50 years. Early life Ronald Jeans was born in Oxton, Merseyside, the younger son of Sir Alexander Grigor Jeans (1849–1924), the founder and ma ...

. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Brighton before transferring to the

Savoy Theatre The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

's West End where it ran for 373 performances between 7 July 1949 and 27 May 1950. The original London cast included

Naunton Wayne Naunton Wayne (born Henry Wayne Davies, 22 June 1901 – 17 November 1970), was a Welsh character actor, born in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales. He was educated at Clifton College. His name was changed by deed poll#Use for changing name, deed po ...

, Joan Greenwood, Derek Farr, Joan Haythorne and Margaret Scudamore.

Adaptation

In 1951 it was made into a British film of the same title directed by Henry Cass, with Greenwood and Farr reprising their stage roles alongside

Nigel Patrick Nigel Dennis Patrick Wemyss-Gorman (2 May 1912 – 21 September 1981) was an English actor and stage director born into a theatrical family. During the late 1940s and 1950s, he became known as a debonair leading man in British films, though he ...

, Athene Seyler and

Audrey Hepburn Audrey Kathleen Hepburn ( Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend from the Classical Holly ...

.Goble p.244

References

Bibliography

* Goble, Alan. ''The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film''. Walter de Gruyter, 1999. * Wearing, J.P. ''The London Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel''. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 1949 plays Comedy plays West End plays Plays by Ronald Jeans British plays adapted into films Plays set in London {{1940s-play-stub