(See facing page and page 4)

by Bernard Shaw

Dawn Addams as "The Millionairess"
and Donald Pleasence with David Markham, Thomas Heathcote, William Mervyn in a comedy of manners

The year is 1935. The action takes place in a solicitor's office in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at a riverside inn, and in a basement on the Commercial Road.

Theatregoers will remember that the last stage production in London in 1952 of "The Millionairess" attracted no less an actress than Katharine Hepburn to play the leading role, with Robert Helpmann as The Doctor. Although, in Shaw's own words it "does not pretend to be anything more than a comedy, or humorous and curious contemporary characters", the play is ideally suited to an actress of fire and temperament, and from the very opening scenes the fireworks begin. Epifania (this is just one among a number of outrageous names that echo to some extent the fashion of Restoration comedy), is a millionairess - a prototype poor-little-rich-girl who has money enough to buy anything she wants, but, when she's got it, finds she no longer wants it. Nevertheless there is a great deal more to her than just money. Her intense and fiery personality drives her to any lengths to achieve her ends, as her husband, her friends, associates, acquaintances, and even lovers, find out.
Playing opposite Dawn Addams, who plays this fascinating and exacting role in her TV acting debut, is Donald Pleasence as the Egyptian doctor. Well known to viewers for many notable performances in television, he received the Guild of Television Producers' Award for the Best Television Actor of 1958. R.A.