Preliminary set design for an unrealised production of Titus Andronicus, created by Leslie Hurry, ca.1954-5. Hurry was originally engaged to design the production by the Director Peter Brook, but was forced to withdraw from the project as a result of ill health. Brook's production, which starred Laurence Olivier in the title role alongside Vivien Leigh as Lavinia, eventually opened at the Royal Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford, in August 1955.

Leslie Hurry (1909-1978) trained at the Royal Academy and during the 1930s became known as a surrealist painter. A one-man show in London in 1942 was seen by the theatre director, Michael Benthall, who recommended Hurry to the dancer and choreographer, Robert Helpmann, then planning a ballet based on Shakespeare's Hamlet. The success of his designs set Hurry on a second career as one of the most distinguished theatre designers of his generation. He designed operas, ballets and plays, notably Swan Lake for the Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1943, a production which stayed in the repertoire for thirty years; Venice Preserv'd for Peter Brook (1953); the Ring Cycle at Covent Garden (1954), and Troilus and Cressida at Stratford for Peter Hall (1960), famous for being staged in a sand pit.