H. K. Ayliff

Who was H. K. Ayliff?

H. K. Ayliff was an English theatre director who directed Shakespeare in contemporary dress as early as the 1920s, as well as Yellow Sands on Broadway.

H.K. Ayliff was one of a triumvirate of celebrated British theatre directors during the years between the two world wars, the others being Tyrone Guthrie and Basil Dean.

Henry Kiell Ayliff was born 1871 in Grahamstown, South Africa, grandson of English settlers of 1820. He moved to England as a young man to study painting at the Royal Academy Schools and in Paris. In 1901 he gave up painting and studied acting under Herman Vezin, playing several parts in London and the provinces, including Juggins in Bernard Shaw’s Fanny's First Play at The Royal Court in Sloane Square. He frequently joined with other out-or-work actors in putting on one-off show-case productions, often directing these, and so developing a talent as a director.

He married Gertrude Homewood, an actress, in 1907. They had three children, Susan born in 1908, Esther in 1910 and David in 1916. In 1922 he started working as director at Barry Jackson’s Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

In April 1923 Cymbeline, the first of a series of modern-dress Shakespeare productions, caused quite a furore. Other important productions were the first production of Shaw’s five-part epic Back to Methuselah, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author for which he also wrote the English version, and the very popular The Farmer's Wife by Eden Philpotts.