H. K. Ayliff was an English theatre director who directed Shakespeare in contemporary dress as early as the 1920s, as well as Yellow Sands on Broadway.
Ayliff was one of a triumvirate of celebrated British theatre directors during the years between the two world wars, the others being Tyrone Guthrie and Basil Dean.
He frequently joined with other out-or-work actors in putting on one-off show-case productions, often directing these, and so developing a talent as a director.
Mr. and Mrs. Ayliff retired to their country cottage in Cambridgeshire at the outbreak of war, but in 1943 he returned to Birmingham to direct Shaw’s Heartbreak House and play the part of Capt.
Shotover, Barrie’s Quality Street and another modern-dress production of The Taming of the Shrew with the young Margaret Leighton as Katherine.