Philip Hedley

Philip Hedley CBE
Born	Philip David Hedley (1938-04-20)20 April 1938 Manchester, England
Died	5 January 2024(2024-01-05) (aged 85)
Occupation	Theatre director

Philip David Hedley, CBE (10 April 1938 – 5 January 2024) was a British theatre director.

Education

Born in Manchester on 10 April 1938, his growing interest in drama was the consistent element throughout his schooling in Manchester, London, Melbourne and Sydney. Praised as an actor at the University of Sydney and when he returned to England in time for the swinging sixties, he thought it would be an actor’s-life-for-him. Seeing a production directed by the innovative director Joan Littlewood revolutionised his thinking about theatre.In the early sixties Hedley became a founding student of East 15 Acting School devoted to Joan Littlewood’s rehearsal methods, which in turn were based on the acting theories of Stanislavsky and the movement theories of Laban.

After Heldey graduated in 1963. He went on to put Littlewood's methods into practice in British theatres in the regions, in London’s West End, and also in Australia, Canada and the Sudan.

Career

On graduating, Hedley became an actor/ASM for a year at a repertory theatre, the Liverpool Playhouse, but that experience convinced him he was a director, not an actor. So, he became a teacher at East 15 Acting School to give himself experience directing plays, for three years. He went on to direct plays for LAMDA, for the Royal Court’s young people’s programme and for the Watford Palace Theatre.

After successfully producing Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’ at the Lincoln Theatre Royal in 1968 Hedley was offered the post of Artistic Director. During his tenure there he directed twenty-five plays and produced twenty more. He relished deliberately casting parts against type for the actors to extend their range.

Before his move to London, Hedley also ran the Midlands Arts Theatre Company in Birmingham for a two years and emphasised young people’s work. While there Hedley directed new plays by Henry Livings and David Cregan and he did two more of their plays at the Midland Arts Centre.

Hedley was then artistic director of Theatre Royal Stratford East from 1979 to 2004. Prior to that, he had been assistant to Joan Littlewood, and Gerry Raffles who was the administrator and owner, at Stratford East.

Hedley would also accept guest productions in eight different regional English theatres, plus two productions a-piece in Vancouver and Sydney. Typical of the reviews he would get: ‘The National Health’ by Peter Nichols with Australia’s leading company of actors at The Old Tote in Sydney: “There is over all an assured and relaxed ensemble playing of the kind one was beginning to despair of in the Old Tote Theatre Company, and a feel of common purpose behind the work which gives the whole play a sense of conviction.” (Katherine Brisbane, The Australian). “The actors look like a team at last; the performances are so far ahead of what most of these actors have done this season that one feels like cheering.” (Greg Curran, The Sunday Australian).

Upon leaving the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 2004 Philip was named Director Emeritus.

Hedley was appointed CBE in the 2005 New Year Honours. He died on 5 January 2024, at the age of 85.

The Rescue of the Royal

Hedley’s role in theatre changed radically in late 1979 owing to a crisis in the management of the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

Over a five-year period three artistic directors had failed to find a formula to make that theatre work after Littlewood's departure, and by autumn 1979 the Arts Council was threatening to withdraw its subsidy if Hedley could not, within two years, justify its continuation.

He took up the challenge, and from a standing start, sought out shows to connect with local, East End audiences. There were pantomimes and Variety Nights, sometimes with star names. Events ranged from local school shows, to West Indian poets, to the North East London Police Choir. There was a new musical actually set in the Theatre Royal itself, with music by Ray Davies of The Kinks. There was Hamlet with a celebrated director, Lindsay Anderson, and there was a political farce about Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power, which received the excellent publicity of provoking ‘questions in the House’.

What really raised hopes the Royal would survive was the first play by Nell Dunn, called ‘Steaming’. Set in the East End, which ran for over three years in the West End. The Guardian commented “It seems the Theatre Royal Stratford East has finally found a management with both a taste for the popular and welcome audacity.”

It became certain the Theatre Royal would keep its Arts Council grant when, a few days before the decision deadline, the Arts Council’s Director of Drama was quoted in The Times as saying, “Philip has taken a very bold line, and he does seem to have found a dramatic vocabulary appropriate to the area.”

Pioneering Black and Asian Work

During Heldey's tenure the Theatre Royal commissioned more black and Asian plays and employed more black and Asian actors than any other British theatre at that time and held three short courses for black and Asian would-be directors.

In the 1990 Prudential Awards for the Arts, the Drama award was won by the Theatre Royal with the following judgement, “Under the present leadership of Philip Hedley, in a time of restriction and entrenchment in the arts the Theatre Royal Stratford East have increased their programme, developed an enthusiastic multi-racial audience of every class and age group, and most successfully promoted new writing with particular emphasis on populist, Afro-Asian, and young people’s work. This is an extraordinary achievement for a theatre of such substantial size but with restricted resources.”

Awards and Honours

1991	ABSA (Association of Business Sponsorship) / The Daily Telegraph Award for Achievement in Sponsorship
1997	The Theatre Royal was named as a role model case study by the Commission for Racial Equality
2004	Arts Council England / Theatre Managers’ Association: Eclipse Award for advances against institutional racism in theatre
2005	CBE, for services to drama Egyptian Government Award for Services to International Experimental Theatre and Multiculturalism Time Out Director’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Theatre Rose Bruford College: Honorary Fellow Director Emeritus: Theatre Royal Stratford East
2011	University of East London: Honorary Doctorate