325 stories by "Michael Coveney"
Actor and director who rescued the Open Air theatre in Regent's Park, London, in the early 1960sDavid Conville, who has died aged 89, gave the air of being a patrician stage director and man…
Actor with a remarkable stage presence admired for leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal CourtJennie Stoller, who has died of cancer aged 72, was an outstanding acto…
Director who developed regional theatre in the Midlands and north of EnglandJohn Harrison, who has died aged 94, was a key figure in the British regional theatre of the 20th century and the …
Actor best known for his roles in the TV series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Colditz and I, ClaudiusNever on the front cover, but always somehow familiar, Bernard Hepton, who has died aged …
Dramatist and screenwriter who enjoyed success with Stevie, Breaking the Code and The Gathering StormThe dramatist and screenwriter Hugh Whitemore, who has died aged 82, was an accomplished …
Founder member of the Old Vic company who lit up the London stage in the 1960s and 70s and starred in the TV series The Main ChanceJohn Stride, who has died aged 81, was a golden boy of the …
As Andrew Lloyd Webber celebrates his 70th birthday, Michael Coveney looks back at the work and legacy of a composer whose work
When I took my mother to see Ken Dodd at the London Palladium in the 1970s, she was banging her head against
Comedian with an endless desire to make people laugh known for his tickling sticks, Diddymen and marathon stage performancesThe last great "front-cloth" comic of our times, and the last stan…
Actor who took the role of Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, the groundbreaking 1956 play by John OsborneThe actor Kenneth Haigh, who has died aged 86, was the original Jimmy Porter in Joh…
John Barton, who died last week aged 89, was the godfather of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The director's sonnet classes formed the
Director and writer celebrated for his work at Chichester Festival theatre and the BBCThe career of Patrick Garland, who has died aged 78, was as varied as it was productive. An actor, produ…
Stage and screen actor who was admired for her roles as Helene Hanff in 84 Charing Cross Road and Mrs Honeychurch in the 1985 film Room With a ViewThe versatile and accomplished actor Rosema…
Veteran actor best known for playing John Aubrey in Brief Lives, Fagin in the stage version of Oliver! and a late role in Game of ThronesAs leading character actors go, Roy Dotrice, who has …
Expert supporting actor equally at home on stage and screen'Benjamin Whitrow has never given a bad performance," said Laurence Olivier, who employed the actor in his National Theatre company…
Actors who nap on stage, ecstatic dances, ravishing arias, lovers swamped in sand … Jan Fabre's epic in a Belgrade conference centre is an endurance testThe centrepiece of this year's Belg…
Welsh-born actor and Richard Burton's first wife, she moved to the US after their split and co-founded a famous New York discoSybil Christopher, who has died aged 83, was the injured party i…
Forty years ago, establishing the Theatres Trust provided the impetus to revitalising the crumbling West End Theatres and ensure their futures. Michael
After rising through the ranks of UK theatre early in his career, director Peter Brook worked around the world before moving to
Peter Hall, who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960 and moved the National Theatre into its new South Bank premises in
Singer, actor and Broadway star who reinvented herself on the cabaret circuitThere are few musical theatre careers that divide as sharply into two parts as did that of Barbara Cook, who has …
William Hoyland was a distinctive and forceful actor whose career ranged across 50 years, first as a member of Laurence Olivier's National
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice created the 20th century's first (and last) great rock opera with flashes of Prokofiev and Stravinsky amid its hosannas " even Shostakovich was a fanUntil qu…
Poet, dramatist, visionary and pamphleteer whose muse was fuelled by a witty and beautiful angerHeathcote Williams, who has died aged 75, was a unique and brilliant writer " poet, dramatist,…
Contemporary reboots of the great works of world theatre aim to 'reclaim them for our time'. But is something being lost along the
