by Emlyn Williams

Miss Moffat, a determined Englishwoman, inherits a house in a Welsh mining village, in 1895.  She decides to set up a school for local children, to get them out of the mines.  In doing so, she discovers Morgan Evans – a young man of outstanding promise – and prepares him for a scholarship to Oxford.  Hugely uplifting, and entertaining, this 1937 play is a testament to the power of education to liberate disadvantaged children.

Based on his own life, Welsh playwright/actor, Emlyn Williams, played Morgan Evans to Dame Sybil Thorndike’s Miss Moffat.  Ethel Barrymore was Miss Moffat on Broadway, Bette Davis in the 1945 film, and Katharine Hepburn in a 1979 re-make.   It has just been remounted at Britain’s National Theatre, starring Nicola Walker.