He also appeared as Romeo in a production of "Romeo and Juliet" (1939), Malvolio in "Twelfth Night", and as Exeter in "Henry V" in 1937, both opposite Laurence Olivier, and Ferdinand in "The Tempest", opposite Gielgud as Prospero. In 1939, he adapted Charles Dickens's novel "Great Expectations" for the stage, playing Herbert Pocket. The play was a success. One of its viewers was a young British film editor, David Lean, who would later have Guinness reprise his role in Lean's 1946 film adaptation of the play. Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in the Second World War, initially as a seaman in 1941, before receiving a commission as a temporary Sub-lieutenant on 30 April 1942 and a promotion to Temporary Lieutenant the following year. Guinness then commanded a landing craft at the Allied invasion of Sicily, and later ferried supplies and agents to the Yugoslav partisans in the eastern Mediterranean theatre. During the war, he was granted leave to appear in the Broadway production of Terence Rattigan's play, "Flare Path", about RAF Bomber Command, with Guinness playing the role of Flight Lieutenant Teddy Graham. Guinness returned to the Old Vic in 1946 and stayed until 1948, playing Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist", the Fool in "King Lear" opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role, DeGuiche in "Cyrano de Bergerac" opposite Ralph Richardson in the title role, and finally starring in an Old Vic production as Shakespeare's Richard II. After leaving the Old Vic, he played Eric Birling in J. B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls" at the New Theatre in October 1946. He played the Uninvited Guest in the Broadway production of T. S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party" (1950, revived at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968). He played "Hamlet" under his own direction at the New Theatre in the West End in 1951. Invited by his friend Tyrone Guthrie to join the premiere season of the Stratford Festival of Canada, Guinness lived for a brief time in Stratford, Ontario. On 13 July 1953, Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival, Shakespeare's "Richard III": "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this sun of York." Guinness won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance as Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in "Dylan". He next played the title role in "Macbeth" opposite Simone Signoret at the Royal Court Theatre in 1966.