Theatre Royal. The name summons up something of grandeur and eloquence. And it was. Hosted by Laurence Olivier, these big-name productions also included the creme de la creme of acting talents from John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Orson Welles to Trevor Howard, Michael Redgrave and Olivier himself. They were based on works by the worlds’ leading authors, among them Charles Dickens, Henry Adam, Oscar Wilde and Anton Chekhov. These are but some of whose company we shall end up being keeping as we raise the curtain on our 1st instalment of theatrical history.