He joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre companies for the festivals of 1936 and 1937, in thirteen major roles, winning excellent reviews for his performance as Hamlet.

Wolfit was born at New Balderton, near Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, on 20 April 1902, the second son and fourth of five children of William Pearce Woolfitt and his wife Emma, née Tomlinson.

[3] After education at Magnus Grammar School in Newark he was briefly a schoolmaster in Eastbourne before successfully auditioning for the actor-manager Charles Doran.

[4] Doran's touring company was a training ground for many British actors, including Ralph Richardson, Cecil Parker, Edith Sharpe, Norman Shelley, Abraham Sofaer and Francis L Sullivan.

[8] Wolfit made his London début on 26 November 1924 at the New Theatre, as Phirous in Matheson Lang's production of The Wandering Jew.

[9] He appeared in supporting roles in a variety of West End productions, and at St George's, Westminster, on 16 April 1928, he married an actress, Chris Frances Castor, with whom he had a daughter.

[12] In 1929 Wolfit joined Lilian Baylis's company at the Old Vic and played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Cassius in Julius Caesar, Touchstone in As You Like It, Macduff in Macbeth and Claudius in Hamlet.

He played Robert Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Young Marlowe in She Stoops to Conquer, Joe Varwell in Yellow Sands, Coade in Dear Brutus and Shakespeare in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

The critic Audrey Williamson wrote that although Wolfit was never as physically suited as Gielgud to the role of Hamlet, in his Stratford performances he gave the character "an electric drive and force of suffering ...

[19] Another critic wrote, "Mr Wolfit has crowned his season's work with a distinguished performance not unworthy of comparison with the great Hamlets".

[10] At the outbreak of the Second World War, despite strong advice to the contrary, Wolfit refused to cancel his plans for an autumn tour.

In that year Tyrone Guthrie invited him to return to the Old Vic to play Lear, Timon of Athens, Lord Ogleby in The Clandestine Marriage, and Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great.

[10] Although Wolfit's touring companies were frequently criticised, they nevertheless included, among many less familiar names, future stars such as Peter Jones, Harold Pinter, Eric Porter, Brian Rix, Frank Thornton and Richard Wattis.

[10] Wolfit died in the Royal Masonic Hospital, London, on 17 February 1968 and was buried in St Peter's Church, Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire.