Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Literary editor and chief book reviewer of the Times who later joined the Observer as its theatre critic
Michael Ratcliffe, who has died aged 89, was the former theatre critic of the Observe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:32AMTuesday, March 11, 2025
South African playwright whose work dealt with the injustices and absurdities of the apartheid era
Apartheid in South Africa cut both ways. The white Afrikaner playwright Athol Fugard, who h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AMSunday, January 26, 2025
Veteran stage, radio and TV actor whose many notable Shakespearean roles included Falstaff and Bottom
With a portly but athletic physicality, a rich baritone voice, a bloodhound, drooping vi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36PMThursday, January 23, 2025
Composer, playwright and theatre director who often worked with her husband, the actor Mark Rylance
Claire van Kampen, who has died of cancer aged 71, was a concert pianist, a musical direct…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:32AMMonday, November 25, 2024
Designer of meticulous, poetically imagined sets who collaborated many times with Harold Pinter and won six Baftas
At the Almeida theatre in Islington, in 2000, Eileen Diss, the Bafta award-…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12AMWednesday, November 20, 2024
Actor who toured with the RSC, played Tess of the d’Urbervilles on radio and starred in Lorna Doone on television
She looked fragile, innocent and vulnerable on stage, but the actor Emily …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:24AMSaturday, September 28, 2024
A distinguished, double Oscar-winning actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to Harry Potter• Appreciations by Michael Billington, Peter Bradshaw and Mark Lawson• A life in pictures�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:54PMThursday, September 26, 2024
Highly expressive actor of impeccable technique that could encompass high comedy and full-blown tragedy
There is a huge raft of exceptional British stage actors who merit commemoration even…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:36PMWednesday, July 31, 2024
Stalwart of the British stage who was also known for her film roles in Romeo and Juliet and 10 Rillington Place
The actor Pat Heywood, who has died aged 92, was a stalwart of repertory theat…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:54PMWednesday, July 24, 2024
Streetwise entertainment agent and producer who worked with stars such as Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland and Joan Collins
The leading entertainment agent and producer Peter Charlesworth, who h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMWednesday, June 5, 2024
Stage and screen actor who was part of the original cast of Doctor Who
On 23 November 1963 – the day after the assassination of President John F Kennedy – the actor William Russell, who …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMSaturday, May 25, 2024
Authoritative stage actor who excelled at playing baddies, and took roles in TV shows such as The Crown and Coronation Street
Primarily a stage actor of good grace, authority and a fine bari…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:36AMMonday, May 20, 2024
Compelling actor who played Kevan Lannister in Game of Thrones, following a notable stage career with the RSC and in the West End
The actor Ian Gelder, who has died of cancer aged 74, was a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:32AMSunday, March 17, 2024
Experimental British theatre director whose confrontational style often featured loud rock music, nudity, blasphemy and free dance
There was a short period in the British theatre – 1968 to…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:06AMWednesday, March 13, 2024
Stage and screen actor known for his political campaigning, both in his choice of roles and his personal life
You might say of the actor Michael Culver that, in Harold Wilson’s great phras…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AMTuesday, March 5, 2024
One of the most important British dramatists of the 20th century who was unafraid of taking on the establishment over censorship
The battle to remove censorship from the British stage was fo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:32PMSunday, February 25, 2024
Playwright best known for his signature early works The Hamlet of Stepney Green and Enter Solly Gold
Although once bracketed with Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker, his fellow East End of Lond…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:54PMFriday, February 2, 2024
American actor, singer and dancer who found fame as Anita in the stage musical West Side Story
Known for her dynamic personality and prodigious physical energy, Chita Rivera, who has died ag…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:32AMTuesday, January 30, 2024
Artistic director of the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, and tireless campaigner against cuts to arts funding
From 1979 to 2004 Philip Hedley, who has died aged 85, was artistic director of t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18PMMonday, January 22, 2024
West End producer who worked with Cameron Mackintosh on musicals such as Les Misérables and The Phantom of the OperaWhen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats unexpectedly became a potential…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:12PMMonday, November 6, 2023
One of the leading postwar theatre managers and administrators who started out as a box-office clerk at the RSCRupert Rhymes, who has died aged 83 following a stroke, was one of the key Lond…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMWednesday, October 25, 2023
Producer of stage hits including Blood Brothers who took Medea to Broadway and served as the chairman of Everton FCBill Kenwright, who has died aged 78 after a lengthy illness, combined the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:19AMSunday, October 22, 2023
Actor and director who played Prince Hal to Orson Welles’s Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, and triumphed in Sleuth in the West End and on BroadwayAll good actors have stories to tell, but …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PMSaturday, October 21, 2023
Stage and screen actor known for her TV roles in Drop the Dead Donkey and The Windsors, and as a star of musical theatreAlthough her first renown on television was in tough-talking professio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:13AMSunday, August 27, 2023
Director and actor who played Auntie Muriel Weasley in Harry Potter and served as artistic director of the Unicorn theatreFor Matyelok Gibbs, who has died aged 91, 70 years in theatre and fi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:13PMMonday, August 21, 2023
Actor and playwright best known for his 1980 stage hit Duet for One, which was later turned into a filmIt is widely accepted that most writers, most playwrights, write about bits of themselv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:25AMTuesday, July 25, 2023
Pioneering lighting designer with Laurence Olivier and Peter Hall at the National Theare, and later in the West EndLeonard Tucker, who has died aged 94, was one of the British theatre’s le…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:37AMThursday, June 29, 2023
American lyricist known for his work with the composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as She Loves Me and Fiddler on the RoofFor 15 years on Broadway, between 1956 and 1970, the lyricist Sheldo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PMThursday, June 15, 2023
Actor who was a fearless, ferocious presence in theatre, cinema and television, then turned to politics as a Labour MPMany leading British actors have mixed art and politics, but no great ac…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:49PMThursday, May 25, 2023
Choreographer whose dance troupes were a mainstay of light entertainment television programmes in the 1960s and 70sThe influence of choreography is rarely evident in what used to be called l…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06PMSaturday, May 6, 2023
Writer, director and script-fixer who nurtured powerful new work at the Soho theatre in LondonOn the night of the 2023 Olivier awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall, Adam Brace, nominated…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:32AM 
