The original cast included Welles, Christopher Lee, Kenneth Williams, Joan Plowright, Patrick McGoohan, Gordon Jackson, Peter Sallis, and Wensley Pithey.
Welles filmed approximately 75 minutes of the production, with the original cast, at the Hackney Empire and Scala Theatres in London.
He hoped to sell the film to Omnibus, the United States television series which had presented his live performance of King Lear in 1953; but Welles stopped shooting when he was disappointed in the results.
Directed by Orson Welles, the original production of Moby Dick—Rehearsed ran June 16–July 9, 1955, at the Duke of York's Theatre, London.
Programmes for the London run, including the opening night performance, give the title as simply Moby Dick.
He hoped to sell the film to Omnibus, the United States television series which had presented his live performance of King Lear in 1953; but Welles stopped shooting when he was disappointed in the results.
[1] The film is lost, with the only copy believed to have been destroyed when a fire broke out at Welles's Madrid home in 1970, while he rented it to the actor Robert Shaw, who was drunkenly smoking in bed.
[5] In The Fabulous Orson Welles, by Peter Noble, cameraman Hilton Craig reveals: "it was by no means merely a photographed stage-play.