 He appeared in many West End plays in the following few years and his earliest successes on the stage were as Hercule Poirot in "Alibi" (1928); he was the first actor to portray the Belgian detective in this stage adaptation of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", and as William Marble in "Payment Deferred", making his Lyceum Theatre (New York) debut in 1931.In 1926, he played the role of the criminal Ficsur in the original London production of Ferenc Molnár's "Liliom" (The play became a musical in 1945 by Rodgers and Hammerstein as "Carousel", where Ficsur became Jigger Craigin, but Laughton never appeared in the musical version).While Laughton is most remembered for his film career, he continued to work in the theatre, as when, after the success of "The Private Life of Henry VIII" he appeared at the Old Vic Theatre in 1933 as Macbeth, Lopakin in "The Cherry Orchard", Prospero in "The Tempest" and Angelo in "Measure for Measure".