The cast included Ivor Barnard and Dame Lilian Braithwaite, as well as Vivien Leigh in the small part of Jessica Morton. The play ran for 178 performances at the Ambassadors Theatre before moving to the Hippodrome, Golders Green, Barnet on 16 August 1937. Hawtrey acted in films from an early age, first appearing while still a child, and as an adult his youthful appearance and wit made him a foil to Will Hay's blundering old fool in the comedy films Good Morning, Boys (1937) and Where's That Fire? (1939). In all he appeared in more than 70 films, including from this period Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936). Hawtrey had another success on stage when he was cast in the role of Gremio in Tyrone Guthrie's production of The Taming of the Shrew in 1939 at the Old Vic. (Roger Livesey starred as Petruchio and his wife, Ursula Jeans, as Katherine.) Hawtrey was an accomplished musician. He recorded as a boy soprano and was billed as "The Angel-Voiced Choirboy" even at the age of fifteen. In 1930 he recorded several duets with the girl soprano Evelyn Griffiths (aged 11) for the Regal label. He was a semi-professional pianist for the Armed Forces during the Second World War. 1940s Hawtrey continued in music revue, starring in Eric Maschwitz's New Faces (1940) at the Comedy Theatre in London, and was praised for his "chic and finished study of an alluring woman spy". New Faces included the premiere of the song "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square", which quickly became a wartime favourite. During and after the Second World War Hawtrey also appeared in the West End in such shows as Scoop, Old Chelsea, Merry England, Frou-Frou and Husbands Don't Count. Hawtrey also directed 19 plays, including Dumb Dora Discovers Tobacco at the Q Theatre in Richmond and, in 1945, Oflag 3, a war drama co-written with Douglas Bader. By the 1940s, Hawtrey was appearing on radio during Children's Hour in the series Norman and Henry Bones, the Boy Detectives (first broadcast in 1943) alongside the actress Patricia Hayes. Later, he provided the voice of snooty Hubert Lane, the nemesis of William in the series Just William. His catchphrase was "How's yer mother off for dripping?" Hawtrey's film career continued, but The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941) and The Goose Steps Out (1942) were his last films with Will Hay. After the latter film he