He drew from such players as Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness, Wendy Hiller, Mai Zetterling, Robert Morley, Brenda Bruce, Frederick Valk, and Harcourt Williams performances which are memorable.

After attending The Central School of Speech and Drama, Swiss Cottage, Ashmore made his professional debut in 1934 in Windfall at the Embassy Theatre, London.

[2] In 1946 Kitty Black, an agent working for Binkie Beaumont's H M Tennent theatrical management company, persuaded him to return to London, having been impressed with his directing at the Oxford Playhouse repertory theatre.

[4][5][6] From 1946 onwards and throughout the 1950s he worked continuously in London's West End, as well directing several plays on Broadway including the well received Legend of the Lovers ( from Jean Anouilh's Eurydice ) starring Richard Burton and Dorothy McGuire at the Plymouth Theatre, New York 1951 and the Master of Thornfield with Errol Flynn in 1958.

[7][8] To Dorothy, a Son (1951), a farcical comedy by Roger McDougall starring Richard Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sim was another big success for Ashmore.