Dear Octopus

[4] The impresario Binkie Beaumont of H. M. Tennent secured the performing rights of Dear Octopus, and offered his friend John Gielgud the romantic lead.

The role of the retiring young employee who is in love with the hero was originally planned for Celia Johnson or Diana Wynyard,[5] but was played by Angela Baddeley to great critical approval.

Then, in the first interval, a dramatic deus ex machina, Charles Morgan, arrived from The Times with news, which spread like wildfire through the theatre, that Neville Chamberlain was flying to meet Hitler at Berchtesgaden.

"[3] The reviewer in The Manchester Guardian noted that at a poignant scene between the matriarch, the prodigal daughter and an innocent grandchild "handkerchiefs are discreetly a-flutter among the audience in numbers that must delight any dramatist.

"[8] The play was revived in the West End in 1967 at the Haymarket Theatre, with Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert heading a cast that included Lally Bowers, Ursula Howells, Richard Todd and Joyce Carey.

The 2024 stage revival at the National Theatre stars Lindsay Duncan, Bessie Carter, Kate Fahy, Malcolm Sinclair and Billy Howle.