Preliminary set design by Leslie Hurry for <i>Cymbeline</i>, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, 1949. The design depicts a crypt with a vaulted ceiling.

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.

The scenery was built by Fred Jenkins in the Workshops at Stratford and painted by Reg Sayle.

The action of the play takes place Cymbeline’s palace, and in Rome and Wales. Although the critic of The Times found the settings ‘over-elaborate’ the Daily Telegraph noted that ‘Mr. Hurry’s settings achieved a barbaric splendour and Michael Benthall bathed ancient Rome and Britain and Renaissance Italy all alike in a Gothic gloom which seemed somehow quite appropriate.’