Set design created by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) for the revival of The School for Scandal, at the Comédie-Française, Paris in 1962.

Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was an English fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre.

The Old Vic Company production of The School for Scandal, by Richard Sheridan originally opened at the New Theatre, London in 1949. The production starred Laurence Olivier as Sir Peter Teazle and Vivien Leigh as Lady Teazle and Beaton was commissioned to design both the sets and the costumes and Miss Leigh’s dresses were made by Thérèse. It was revived at for a production at the Comédie-Française, Paris in 1962.

The set and costumes were well received. Harold Conway praised the ‘sumptuous costumes and brilliant back cloth settings by Cecil Beaton, which proved stimulating and provocative by turns.’ Similarly the reviewer in the Daily Telegraph declared, ‘I have not often seen a production in which my eye was more consistently pleased.’ T.C.Wolsey, writing the ‘Arts and Entertainment’ column in 1949, was less enthusiastic about the production. Whilst he felt that ‘Mr. Cecil Beaton’s drop curtains and backcloths [were] wholly successful. His dresses were less so’ and suggested that the costumes ‘sometimes add to that faint whiff of Quality Street which crops up here and there throughout the evening.’