My kind of theatre concerns itself with kings and queens, princesses sleeping or otherwise in ivory towers, or in enchanted castles with satins, furs and cloths of gold. There must be huge splashes of colour, wild music, beautiful people, monstrous Calibans; magic, imagination, illusion, fairies, oceans of blood and wine, and always happy endings. So wrote Angus McBean of the theatre for which he was the court photographer for nearly thirty years, the London stage from the 1930s to the 1960s that encompassed legendary productions of Shakespeare, Congreve, Shaw, Wilde and Coward, the operas of Benjamin Britten, and the beginnings of the Royal Ballet and the Royal National Theatre.

Blending wit, drama and fantasy with the consummate skill of a master practitioner, McBean was undoubtedly one of the greats of theatrical, creative and commercial photography. The best of his theatrical portraits, in which he immortalized the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness, are superbly reproduced here in this sumptuous volume, which will be snapped up by anyone with an interest in British theatre, photography and surrealism.