Costume design by Kenneth Rowell for the Player King in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Old Vic Company, 1953.

In 1953 the Directors of the Old Vic announced that the theatre would present all 36 of the plays published in Shakespeare's First Folio in the following five years. Hamlet, directed by the theatre's director, Michael Benthall, was the first play to be staged, opening at the Old Vic on 14 September 1953. The production had been seen at the Edinburgh Festival in August but had to be re-worked for the Old Vic's proscenium stage. James Bailey designed a permanent Palladian-inspired architectural setting which was used for all six plays presented in the first season of the Five Year Plan, between September 1953 and May 1954. Designer Kenneth Rowell devised the costumes for Hamlet and adapted the setting, adding steps and curtains. Hamlet was played by Richard Burton, with Claire Bloom as Ophelia, Fay Compton as Gertrude and Michael Hordern as Polonius. This design has been incorrectly annotated: Laurence Hardy played Claudius and the role of the Player King was taken by Edgar Wreford.


Kenneth Rowell (1920-1999) began designing for dance in his native Australia in the 1940s. Following the success of his designs for Ballet Rambert's 1949 Australian tour, Marie Rambert and Laurence Olivier recommended Rowell for a British Council scholarship, and in 1950 he came to London to study. Two years late John Gielgud commissioned him to create the costumes for Macbeth at Stratford-upon-Avon and this established Rowell as a major stage designer. Based in England for thirty years, he worked as both a designer and a painter, returning to live in Australia in 1982.