Donald Sinden At Home (1959)

Golders Green, London. At film star Donald Sinden’s home, we see the highlights of his collection of theatrical memorabilia. C/U panning across a pile of old theatre bills and programmes; tilt up to show actor Donald Sinden sitting in a chair in his garden, reading a book on the life of Henry Irving; his two cats and a dog sit beside him. Commentator tells us that theatrical history is Donald’s hobby. Donald gets up, goes into his house and starts polishing an 18th century sideboard that Fred Terry died against (!); on the wall are portraits of Edmund Kean and Mrs Sarah Siddons. Donald cleans arm amulets that belonged to Kean’s son, Charles and an ornate chain that Henry Irving wore as Louis XI around 1870. C/Us of framed antique theatre playbills on the wall. On the mantelpiece is an award presented to Donald from the Variety Club in 1954. Donald is seen brushing the hat Sir John Martin-Harvey wore in ’The Only Way’, (original dramatisation of ’A Tale of Two Cities’). Sitting on a couch beside him