On Asche's return to London in 1911, Edward Knoblock wrote the play "Kismet" for him, with the understanding that Asche could revise it. He shortened and partly re-wrote it and produced it with much success, playing Hajj. The production ran for two years, and a successful tour in Australia followed in 1911–12, with "Kismet", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and "Antony and Cleopatra". Back in London, "Kismet" was revived successfully, but in October 1914 Asche's own play "Mameena" based on H. Rider Haggard's novel, "A Child of the Storm", though at first well received, proved a financial failure, largely on account of the conditions in London at the beginning of World War I.