From 1930 Hawtrey worked as an actor in London, on tour in South Africa, and with the Liverpool Repertory Company. In 1939 he was director of productions at the Embassy Theatre in north London, subsequently becoming director at the Swindon Repertory Company. Hawtrey then became the second manager of the Dundee Repertory Theatre, succeeding Robert Thornley as Director of Productions in December 1940. He opened with a Christmas production of The Scarlet Pimpernel, and from 1940 to 1942 he directed and acted in over 40 plays in Dundee.
Embassy Theatre
In January 1945 Hawtrey reopened the Embassy, which had been closed due to bomb damage, and under his directorship there followed a string of successful productions. From the first two years' output, 20 plays in all, he selected six for publication, in two volumes, under the title Embassy Successes, namely
Of these, Worm's Eye View and No Room at the Inn enjoyed highly successful transfers to the West End, at the Whitehall and Winter Garden theatres respectively, and also became notable films. In 1948 a third volume of Embassy Successes comprised
Further successes followed, among them the Sylvia Rayman play Women of Twilight, which proved a major hit for Hawtrey and the Embassy in 1951/52, transferring to both the Vaudeville Theatre and the Victoria Palace, also becoming a successful film. Introducing the first two volumes of Embassy Successes, Hawtrey pointed out that "People often ask me, 'What is your policy at the Embassy?' The answer is simple. Our policy is this. To present new plays dealing with today's world - in terms of entertainment. If these plays are written by new playwrights, so much the better. I am aware that the English theatre cannot properly thrive unless there is a constant supply of fresh dramatists. At the Embassy, we shall always do everything in our power to foster this supply." "Not the least of Mr. Hawtrey's claims to the gratitude of his audiences," wrote Val Gielgud in the third Embassy Successes book, "is his persistent refusal to be deterred from experiment by difficulties of staging which too frequently have proved fatal to the chances of a play's production in the West End." According to the actor Leslie Phillips, Hawtrey "was a charming, easy-going man with a great sense of humour and a natural instinct for popular theatre."
Screen work
In parallel with his work in theatre, Hawtrey also acted in television productions and several films, a few of which were
He was married to the actress Marjorie Clark, with whom he had two sons, Charles and actor Nicholas. He died in London of a heart attack on 18 October 1954.
