Byam Shaw, Glen(cairn) Alexander

Byam Shaw, Glen(cairn) Alexander (1904–86), English actor and director. He made his first appearance on the stage in 1923, and two years later was seen in London as Yasha in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. He gained further experience in Fagan's company at the Oxford Playhouse. In 1937–8 he was a member of Gielgud's repertory company at the Queen's Theatre, and in 1939 played Horatio to Gielgud's Hamlet in Elsinore and at the London Lyceum. After serving in the army during the Second World War he returned to the theatre as a director, having already had some experience before 1939. He directed Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1946; NY, 1947) and, for the first Young Vic, As You Like It (1949) and Henry V (1951). In 1952 he was appointed co-director with Anthony Quayle of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company, becoming sole director, 1956–9, his productions including Antony and Cleopatra (1953) and Hamlet (1958), both with Michael Redgrave, Macbeth (1955) with Olivier, and King Lear (1959) with Charles Laughton. He later directed several plays in London, among them Rattigan's Ross (1960; NY, 1961) and Strindberg's The Dance of Death (1967, for the National Theatre). From 1962 he was also involved in opera production. He was married to Angela Baddeley.