In 1954 the British impresario Donald Albery produced the play “I am a Camera” for London’s West End stage. It was based on John van Druten’s play that had been staged in New York in 1951 and that, in turn, was based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel about life in Berlin in the 1930s, titled “Goodbye Berlin”.
The London production was given at the New Theatre and starred the very accomplished Dorothy Tutin in the lead role of Sally Bowles. John van Druten acted as the director. It was a major success, especially for Tutin, and ran from May through January 8th, 1955.
Subsequently Albery assembled a different cast for a projected 6-month season in the British provinces. For the week of performances at the Theatre Royal, Brighton starting on January 10th, 1955, the role of Sally Bowles was played by the RADA-trained actress Jocelyn James, who had been Tutin’s understudy, but when the play opened in Oxford on February 7th Moira Shearer had assumed the lead. As, in late December 1954, Shearer had just returned from a long tour of the U.S. and Canada with The Old Vic’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she may not have been available for the Brighton engagement. Many in the support cast used in Brighton were also replaced but some, like Marianne Deeming, Anton Diffring and John Gale, were retained.
It is not known why these changes took place but it seems that Albery very much had his eye on the box-office in casting Shearer.
When Tutin was in rehearsals in 1954 it was probably Albery who commissioned the well-known theatre photographer, Angus Mcbean, to take publicity shots of her that were used to advertise the play outside the theatre and in newspapers and magazines. Similarly, it is likely that he asked Mcbean to photograph Shearer as Sally Bowles in early 1955.
Moira Shearer as Sally Bowles in I am a Camera. Photo by Angus McBean, 1955. Photo reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
The cover of the programme used for the London production was an almost exact copy of that used in New York in 1951 and featured a cartoon of Sally Bowles with a cigarette holder to her lips. When it came time to design the cover for the provincial run the same image was used but, added to it, in large red letters was “Moira Shearer”. It seems as though Albery anticipated her to be the draw as much as than the play itself.
The cover for the programme for the appearance of I am a Camera in Birmingham.
John Barber, the drama critic for the Daily Express, had reviewed the West End production and his evaluation of it was also added in a box on the cover. It read, “such a bad, bad girl in a good, good play”.
Barber reviewed Shearer’s opening night in Oxford , where the tour began, and gave her a rave review. He concluded that, in terms of craft and skill, that, while she was no Tutin, he felt that he had witnessed the birth of an actress.
The play dealt with the themes of promiscuity and sexuality, so it was bound to attract the attention of the then highly sensitive censors and both they and the Lord Chamberlain reviewed the script. In addition, at some date before opening in the West End, Albery met with the censors to put his case that the script not be expurgated. However, changes were required. John Gale, a member of the cast for the provincial tour, reporting on the performance in Eastbourne in the summer of 1955, noted the presence of the local police throughout the show.
Gale also expressed his opinion that a good part of the audience in any venue was there primarily to witness the beauty of the leading lady and in the north of England, far from the glare and glamour of the West End ,the advance notices for the play in the local newspapers advertised “the personal visit of Moira Shearer”.
Shearer received very mixed reviews. The correspondent in the Birmingham Weekly Post gave her a “thumbs up”. “Moira Shearer is all exquisite grace and beauty; and she has a voice of unexpected depth and proves herself an actress of considerable ability”. The critic in the Eastbourne Gazette was not impressed by the play or by Shearer’s portrayal of Sally Bowles. “She overacted. Her attractive lisp was lost in an avalanche of words and only occasionally did she come over naturally”. In the opinion of this same critic Michael Gwynn as Christopher Isherwood didn’t fare any better.
Like the West End run, the provincial tour, primarily in towns and cities like Nottingham, Bournemouth, Cardiff and Leeds in England, Scotland and South Wales, was a great financial success. Thus, Albery’s optimism in his venture was apparently borne out.
For Shearer the tour appears to have ended in Southsea in June and she began her acting career at the Bristol Old Vic at some time between August and October.
Sources.
John Barber, The Daily Express, February 8th, 1955.
Birmingham Weekly Post, February 18th, 1955
Eastbourne Gazette, June 15th, 1955.
John Gale, Theatre Archive Project (online resource), no date.
Glasgow Herald, April 1st, 1955. “Moira Shearer in New Role”.
Moira Shearer 
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