Alec Guinness: A Kind of Victory

Thin and struggling to overcome a desperate childhood, a young Alec Guinness is alone in pre-war London until he lucks into being cast in Hamlet at the Old Vic Theater, along with Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Michael Redgrave. Olivier lords over Guinness as his understudy as they rehearse for an outdoor performance at Elsinore Castle. The stage falls apart in the rain and Tony Guthrie and Guinness must improvise an entire Hamlet in a hotel lobby.