Captain Carvallo is a traditional comedy play told in three acts by Denis Cannan

Denis Cannan

Denis Cannan was a British dramatist, playwright and script writer. Born Denis Pullein-Thompson, the son of Captain Harold J. Pullein-Thompson and novelist Joanna Cannan, he changed his name by deed poll in 1964. His younger sisters were Josephine, Diana and Christine Pullein-Thompson.Born in...

, with its preposterous Ruritarian story featuring a romantic hero with a girl in every soldierly billet.

The comedy was an immediate success when it opened at the St. James Theatre

St. James Theatre

The St. James Theatre is located at 246 W. 44th St. Broadway, New York City, New York. It was built by Abraham L. Erlanger, theatrical producer and a founding member of the Theatrical Syndicate, on the site of the original Sardi's restaurant. It opened in 1927 as The Erlanger...

 on the 9th August, 1950, as the second production under Sir Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

's management.
Captain Carvallo, which lit up the West End in 1950 tells the story of a philandering young army officer, Captain Carvallo. It was a refreshing play of ideas, joyfully offbeat and absurd. Cannan contemplated the activities of his characters with a tolerant and not unfriendly disdain.

The play was first tried out in March 1950 at the Bristol Old Vic, where Cannan was acting at the time. A few months later, Laurence Olivier boldly restaged the play – billed as a "traditional comedy" – at the St James's theatre in London, with James Donald in the lead role, opposite Diana Wynyard. It was a great success, although Cannan preferred the Bristol production. "His play shimmers with ideas wittily juxtaposed, and it is funnier than the Crazy Gang," wrote the critic Harold Hobson. A television production of the play was broadcast on the BBC the following year, with Patrick Macnee in the lead. Cannan adapted the play himself for a Rediffusion production later that decade. In 1988, this well-constructed and stylish play was revived at the Greenwich theatre.

Original cast (St. James Theatre, 1950)

Captain Carvallo - James Donald

James Donald

James Donald was a Scottish actor. Tall and thin, he usually specialised in playing authority figures.Donald was born in Aberdeen, and made his first professional stage appearance sometime in the late-1930s, having been educated at Rossall School on Lancashire's Fylde coast...

Smilja Darde - Diana Wynyard

Diana Wynyard

Diana Wynyard, CBE , whose birth name was Dorothy Isobel Cox, was an English stage and film actress.-Life and career:...

Professor Winke - Peter Finch

Peter Finch

Peter Finch was a British-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a...

Caspar Darde - Richard Goolden

Richard Goolden

Richard Goolden was a British actor, most famous for his portrayal of Mole from Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows...

Private Gross - Thomas Heathcote

Thomas Heathcote

Thomas Heathcote was a British character actor.He was educated at Bradfield College, near Reading in Berkshire, England. His films included A Night to Remember , Village of the Damned , Billy Budd , A Man for All Seasons , Night of the Big Heat and Quatermass and the Pit...

Anni - Jill Bennett

The Baron - Anthony Pelly