In December 1955, Moscow theatre-goers saw "Hamlet" played by an English company under the direction of producer Peter Brook. The performances were given at the Moscow Art Theatre. The troupe was formed especially for the staging of "Hamlet" by the Tennent TheatreCompany founded  by  H.  Beaumont  in   1942.
Theatre organization in England is such that only a few theatres have their own permanent company. Troupes are formed for a season, sometimes for a single play, the director inviting from various places the actors whom he considers most suitable to appear in the parts.

An instance of this was the company invited by the USSR Ministry of Culture to perform in Moscow. It included well-known actresses like Diana Wynyard, who appeared as Queen Gertrude, while others, like Mary Ure, the youngest actress in the company, who played Ophelia, were hardly known to the public.

The following are extracts from interviews given by these two actresses to a News correspondent.
"I 've been on the stage for thirty-one years now," said Diana Wynyard. "In that time I've performed in almost every country and in all sorts of plays. My favourite playwrights are Shaw and Shakespeare, my favourite roles—Lady Macbeth, Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing" and Desdemona. I have played Lady Macbeth and Beatrice in London, Europe and even far-off Australia.
"For some reasons I thought we would have a dull time of it in Moscow. Dull because there would be a dull audience who wouldn't understand us. I was mistaken, however. The audience was splendid. They arrived in time for the performance, something that never happens in England. They love the theatre. When we changed an evening performance billed for December 10 to a matinee so that the whole company might see the ballet "Romeo and Juliet," the public was given only a few days' notice. But the theatre was packed as usual and nobody was late.

"Your audiences are very attentive. They respond to the actors' every movement, every word. I would sometimes steal a glance at the audience during the performance and see tense, absorbed faces, looking over the shoulders of those sitting in front of them, anxious not to miss a thing happening on the stage. To put it briefly, I shall miss your enthusiastic, attentive play-goers."
"I think your audience is quite wonderful and most attractive," Mary Ure told the correspondent. "During performances, watching how people here follow the acting, I tried to compare English and Russian audiences. I can't understand our strange custom of drinking tea during performances. In Britain we actors can often hear people in the audience stirring the sugar in their cups during the play. I like the Russian custom of serving tea only at buffets between acts.

"Although Moscow also has a "Hamlet" production at the Mayakovsky theatre, I was unfortunately unable to see it, as the theatre happened to be on tour in Baku at the time. I did, however, meet Samoilov, who plays the title role, and even appeared with him in a television scene from the play. He, of course, played Hamlet in Russian and I Ophelia in English. Knowing the play so well, we understood each other perfectly despite the difference in languages.

"I am twenty-two years old, the youngest actress in the cast. Up to now I've appeared only in a French comedy, and Ophelia is my favourite role... I'm already thinking of the future, which to an actress means new parts. As for me, I want to play Nina in Chekhov's "The Sea-gull." I love dra-matic roles and it is my ambition to play Nina."