There are few figures in British film history as fascinating as Wendy Toye. Born in east London in 1917, she was a showbiz prodigy who first appeared on stage aged three at the Royal Albert Hall. Later, she was a dancer, choreographer and director working across stage and film, and responsible for some of British cinema’s most beguiling and chilling flights of fantasy – as well as some beloved comedies. All that a time when women were rarely entrusted with the director’s chair. “Then, I liked it to be forgotten that my films were made by a woman,” she said in 1990. “I think nowadays I’d feel quite differently.”
