The start of postwar theatre in London was signalled by the birth of the Old Vic school in the rubble of the bombed theatre in Waterloo in 1948, and the reopening of the Old Vic itself in 1950. The actor Lee Montague, who has died aged 97, was a founding student at the school and “walked on” in Twelfth Night, the first professional production in the postwar era at the Vic.
His subsequent stage career included Old Vic seasons separated by 10 years. He played Face (his great friend, Leo McKern, was Subtle) in the visionary genius Tyrone Guthrie’s production of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, the last show on the Old Vic stage before Laurence Olivier moved back in at the head of the new National Theatre company in 1963.
