‘I could go on forever varying goblins’: Arthur Rackham designs Hansel and Gretel, Cambridge Theatre 1933

Abstract During the Christmas theatre season, 1933, Arthur Rackham, noted for his fantasy illustrations, designed sets and costumes for Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel with a limited run at the Cambridge Theatre, 26 December to 27 January, 1934. Its producer Sydney Carroll and director Basil Dean were major figures in the London theatre and accustomed to working with professionals who were costume designers in the modern sense – unlike Rackham who was an illustrator hired to put his paintings onstage. Rackham was unfamiliar with the costume process and with the theatre in general and relied heavily on the more experienced Stella Mary Pearce (later Newton) to oversee the costumes’ construction and all final steps of the process. This article explores the extent to which Rackham’s experience – and product – as a neophyte designer can be reconstructed from available archival material that includes costume designs and correspondence.