Greet, Sir Ben

Greet, Sir Ben [ Philip Barling] (1857–1936), English actor-manager. He first appeared on the stage in 1879, as Philip Ben, and three years later was in London, where he appeared with a number of outstanding players including Lawrence Barrett and Mary Anderson. In 1886 he gave the first of his many open-air productions of Shakespeare, and formed a company with which he toured incessantly in the United Kingdom and the USA, rivalling Frank Benson as a trainer of young actors. He spent several years in America, but returned in 1914 and helped to found the Old Vic, where between 1915 and 1918 he produced 24 of Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet in its entirety, as well as a number of other English classics. Many London schoolchildren owed their introduction to the theatre to his visits in the 1920s and 1930s to local authority and other centres with a repertory in which Shakespeare predominated. In his later years he concentrated mainly on productions for schools and open-air performances. He celebrated his stage jubilee in 1929, and continued working until his death.