Pencil and watercolour caricature by Gilbert Sommerlad (1904-1976) of Roger Livesey as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, Old Vic Company, 1950.

Gilbert Sommerlad (1904–1976), a professional pianist and violinist, began his career in Brighton as an accompanist at local cinemas and theatres, and in 1936 moved to the recently built New Theatre at Oxford, where his brother Roy, also a musician, was already working. Gilbert Sommerlad was an orchestral violinist and rehearsal pianist at the New Theatre for over 40 years and, when not required in the orchestra pit, he occupied himself by sketching the performers, becoming well known in the profession as a caricaturist. His sketches, a total of 441, many signed by their subjects, were mounted in six albums which his son donated to the V&A in 2001.

The Old Vic company’s production of Twelfth Night visited Oxford in October 1950, prior to its staging in London. The Old Vic theatre had suffered bomb damage in 1941 and remained derelict until 1950 when it was restored in time for the 1951 Festival of Britain. It reopened on 14 November with a gala performance of the Twelfth Night seen by Sommerlad. Peggy Ashcroft played Viola with Roger Livesey as Sir Toby, Alec Clunes as Orsino and Paul Rogers as Malvolio.

Roger Livesey (1906-1976) became famous for his appearances in the films of Powell and Pressburger in the 1940s, but was also an experienced Shakespearean actor. Twelfth Night's director Hugh Hunt emphasised the play’s comedy and though critics felt that this overshadowed the romance they enjoyed the buffoonery of Livesey’s surprisingly acrobatic old reprobate, who managed to fall down stairs and tumble off a ladder without losing his suavity and the ‘drunken serenity’, which, said Harold Hobson, was ‘a glorious contribution to the evening’s entertainment’ (Sunday Times, 19 November 1950).