Hedli Anderson Hedli Anderson Antoinette Millicent Hedley Anderson (1907–1990) was an English singer and actor. Known as Hedli Anderson, she studied singing in England and Germany before returning to London in 1934. Anderson joined the Group Theatre, and performed in cabaret and in the initial productions of plays by W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Louis MacNeice. She married MacNeice in 1942; the couple had one daughter. They separated in 1960. Among the composers and lyricists who wrote songs for her were Auden, MacNeice, Benjamin Britten, Elisabeth Lutyens and William Alwyn. Auden's "Funeral Blues" (also known as "Stop all the clocks", later
The Ascent of F6 dedicated to Auden's geologist brother John Bicknell Auden who had taken part in an expedition near the Himalayan mountain K2. Auden personally invited Benjamin Britten to write the incidental music for the play. Britten composed the music in February 1937, the month of the play's first production, including a choral setting of "Stop all the clocks" (titled "Funeral Blues"). The play was first produced at the Mercury Theatre, London on 26 February 1937, with incidental music by Benjamin Britten conducted from the piano by Brian Easdale. Directed by Rupert Doone, the cast included William Devlin as Michael Ransom, Dorothy Holmes-Gore