Christopher Fry’s adaptation of Giraudoux’s Duel of Angels was toured by the Old Vic Company in 1961 – 62 and visited the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Vivien Leigh led the tour, appearing as Paola in Duel of Angels, as Viola in Twelfth Night and as Marguerite Gautier in the stage version of Alexander Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias. The costumes for Duel of Angels were originally designed by Christian Dior (1905 – 1957) for the UK premiere in 1958; they were then recreated for the touring production by the London based costumiers Berman’s and Nathan’s Ltd.

Photographer Anthony Buckley (1912 – 1993) was commissioned to capture a series of images of the play, for marketing and publicity purposes. Buckley opened his first portrait studio in 1937 and he quickly gained a reputation for his portraits of leading actresses of the day. After serving in World War II, he returned to photography and by the early 1950s, his reputation as a leading stage portraitist grew rapidly. In the 1960s he moved to Grosvenor Street, an address that better reflected his enhanced status as a royal photographer.