the next year by Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Octavia in Antony and Cleopatra, Mrs Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, Queen Katharine in Henry VIII, the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and Emilia in Othello . Beginning in March 1948 she played the gawky schoolmistress Miss Gosssage in The Happiest Days of Your Life, which ran for more than six hundred performances. Later years In the 1950s, she rejoined the Old Vic, where her parts included the Widow of Florence in All's Well That Ends Well and the Queen in King John. Returning to comedy in February 1954 she played Miss Ashford in a revival of The Private Secretary. In 1956 she appeared in the long-running comedy The Bride and the Bachelor by Ronald Millar in the West End. She returned to the role of Mrs Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, at the Bristol Old Vic in 1960 and played the part in Lebanon with the same company. Also at Bristol she played the Abbess in The Comedy of Errors, and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. In September 1962 she played Hilda Rose in the short-lived London production of Big Fish, Little Fish, and was in a much more successful comedy in 1964, playing Lady Cleghorn in William Douglas-Home's The Reluctant Peer. Her last stage role was Aunt March in an adaptation of Little Women in 1968. Marriage and death Lyel married John Anthony Edwards in 1932. She died in 1972 in Hampstead, London, aged 75. Selected filmography S.O.S. (1928) Hobson's Choice (1931) After Office Hours (1932) Let Me Explain, Dear (1932) Marry Me (1932) Marooned (1933) Channel Crossing (1933) Over the Garden Wall (1934) A Political Party (1934) Passing Shadows (1934) The Farmer's Wife (1941) This Man Is Dangerous (1941) The Shop at Sly Corner (1946) Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (1948) It's Not Cricket (1949) Black 13 (1953) See How They Run (1955) Suspended Alibi (1957) The Little Hut (1957) Selected stage appearances Murder on the Second Floor by Frank Vosper (1929) The Blue Goose by Peter Blackmore (1941) The Shop at Sly Corner by Edward Percy Smith (1945) The Happiest Days of Your Life by John Dighton (1948) Count Your Blessings by Ronald Jeans (1951) The Manor of Northstead by William Douglas Home (1954) The Bride and the Bachelor by Ronald Millar (1956) Wolf's Clothing by Kenneth Horne (1959) Notes References