In 1952 the young director Tony Richardson cast Devine in a television adaptation of "Curtain Down", a short story by Anton Chekhov. There soon developed what Devine came to call their "great friendship". Not long afterwards, together with Richardson's friend and partner the American sociologist George Goetschius, they formed a plan for a radical new theatre company, the objective of which, as Devine wrote later, "was to get writers, writers of serious pretensions, back into the theatre", and thus to make the theatre "part of the intellectual life of the country". The fulfilment of these goals led to the formation in 1955 of what was called the English Stage Company. They acquired the rental of the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London, and Devine placed an advertisement in "the Stage" asking for new plays.