Founder of the experimental Gate Theatre Salon in 1925, with his first wife Molly Veness, he staged London's first expressionistic production in the following year.

[2] However, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the standard repertory plays, being himself attracted to the experimental works of American and Continental directors, and the avant-garde playwrights of the 1920s.

[2] To stage such plays, he and his wife, the actress Molly Veness, rented a room in Floral Street, Covent Garden, which they were forced to run as a private club since London City Council refused to grant a licence for their "theatre", which, according to Edna Antrobus, had only "one entrance and exit and a rickety wooden staircase".

In 1936 he directed a production of C. L. R. James's play Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History at the Westminster Theatre.

[2] By the late 1940s Godfrey was a prominent director, working on films such as the Errol Flynn vehicles Cry Wolf and Escape Me Never.