The Demi-Paradise

Laurence Olivier - Ivan Kouznetsoff
Penelope Dudley-Ward - Ann Tisdall
Marjorie Fielding - Mrs. Tisdall
Margaret Rutherford - Rowena Ventnor
Felix Aylmer - Mr. Runalow
George Thorpe - Herbert Tisdall
Guy Middleton - Richard Christie
Michael Shepley - Mr. Walford
Joyce Grenfell - Sybil Paulson
Edie Martin - Miss Winnifred Tisdall
Muriel Aked - Mrs. Tisdall-Stanton
Jack Watling - Tom Sellers
Everley Gregg - Mrs. Flannel
Miles Malleson - Box Office Manager
Marian Spencer - Mrs. Teddy Beckett
Wilfrid Hyde-White - Waiter
John Laurie - Wounded Sailor
George Cole - Percy

Ivan Kouznetsoff, an enthusiastic young Soviet marine engineer, invents a new type of propeller and is sent to have it manufactured in England, traditionally the home of the finest craftsmen. He arrives in England in early 1939 and is invited by Ann, granddaughter of an eccentric and intelligent ship owner, Mr Runalow, to her country home for the weekend. Ivan is at first bewildered and at times repelled by the smugness, strange sense of humour, obsession with tradition and other complexities of the English people with whom he comes into contact. He returns to Russia without seeing his propeller as a workable proposition.

In 1941 he returns and again stays at the Runalows' house. This time he sees a different England, a country at war. The class tensions, the laziness and indifference are gone. Ivan is delighted and his English friends, too find a new interest in someone they had decided was a dour and humourless communist. Eventually his propeller is manufactured and tried out successfully. Ivan returns to the Soviet Union, promising to come back to England (and to Ann) when the war is over.
Excerpt© 'Puffin Asquith' by R.J. Minney.