Austin. In 1928 he was contracted by Charles Cochran to direct the music for This Year of Grace by Noël Coward, which ran for ten months at the London Pavilion. Another Cochran production followed, Cole Porter's Wake Up and Dream, which ran for 263 performances at the same theatre. He conducted The Immortal Hour for Sir Barry Jackson in 1933 at the Queen's Theatre. The score Irving provided for The Two Bouquets (1936), a comedy by Herbert Farjeon, was based on Victorian melodies selected by Eleanor Farjeon. There were two more collaborations with the Farjeons: An Elephant in Arcady (1939), and The Glass Slipper (1944), the latter with music for the dance interludes by Clifton Parker. Irving was also the musical director of J. B. Priestley's then experimental play Johnson Over Jordan, which opened at the New Theatre on 22 February 1939, directed by Basil Dean and with Ralph Richardson in the title role. It soon transferred to the Saville Theatre for a relatively successful run after some extensive re-writing. The production used original music by the young Benjamin Britten, some of it orchestrated by Irving. Irving conducted two Mozart operas (The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte) at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in 1938 with the Chanticleer Opera Company. During the war he became musical director for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He was music director for the International Ballet company in 1945 (Her Majesty's and Princes), 1946 (Coliseum) 1947 (Adelphi), and 1948 (London Casino). Irving often worked with Thomas Beecham. Ealing Studios In the early 1930s Basil Dean appointed Irving music director at the newly opened Ealing Film Studios. He composed many scores for classic Ealing comedies including Whisky Galore!, Turned Out Nice Again (starring George Formby) and Kind Hearts and Coronets. But like his younger counterparts Muir Mathieson at Denham and Hubert Clifford at London Film Studios (who both worked closely with film producer and director Alexander Korda) Irving also brought in some of the best known composers of the day to provide music - including John Addison, William Alwyn, Georges Auric, Benjamin Frankel, John Ireland, Gordon Jacob, Alan Rawsthorne, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton. In this he had the backing of the studio's head of production Michael Balcon, who encouraged Irving to engage serious composers routinely and to use large orchestral forces and unusual scoring. Irving secured John Ireland for The