Philip Hedley, who has died aged 85, was a protege of Joan Littlewood, the radical founder of Theater Workshop, a collective that toured with shows aimed at working-class audiences and led an extraordinary revolution in British theater in the 1950s when it settled at the Theater Royal in Stratford, East London.
Hedley started as assistant to Joan Littlewood in 1972, and after a hiatus following her departure from the theater in 1974, he took over as Artistic Director of the Theater Royal Stratford East in 1979 and remained in post for 25 years.
He recalled Joan Littlewood telling him during his interview that she had founded her life "on the rock of change." "She was completely against anything that was established where people thought they had developed safe rules for how to behave," he said. "If an actor had a great laugh on a line, that was the line she would change the next night."
Hedley stayed true to her vision and maintained the theatre's reputation for both innovative productions and for bringing in new audiences, despite perennial battles with the Arts Council over funding.
He built on her belief in creating work that reflects and engages the local community, which became much more culturally mixed in the 1980s and 1990s, so that by the end of his tenure white people in the theater's home borough of Newham in the problems came. a minority.
He championed the work of black and Asian actors and writers, attracting a more diverse audience with varied evenings (described in the Evening Standard as consisting of 'geriatric jokes and brand new sketches, bizarre contortionists and costumed drag queens, loud, brash and often extremely extreme ). rude") and annual pantomimes (usually with a black central character) and co-productions with leading black and Asian companies.
Musicals included Moti Roti Puttli Chunni (1993), a spin on Bollywood; and Five Guys Named Moe (1990) by Clarke Peters, based on the music of American bandleader Louis Jordan, which transferred to the West End and Broadway.
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In 1999, Hedley founded the theater's acclaimed Musical Theater Workshop to encourage local writers and composers. The workshop was instrumental in the production of Da Boyz (2003), a hip-hop adaptation by Ultz (born David Ultz) of the 1938 Broadway hit The Boys from Syracuse, for which all chairs were removed from the stalls to allow young spectators dance to pose.
In the US, the entertainment weekly Variety devoted its entire front page to the show, expressing surprise that a small theater in London had managed to negotiate the rights to modernize the Rodgers and Hart original in a way that no American theater should have doing.
Another major success was the popular ska Windrush musical The Big Life (2004), written by Paul Sirett and Paul Joseph and billed as the first black British musical to play in the West End. It won Hedley the Arts Council's first Eclipse Award for tackling racism in theater - and served as his swan song.
Just as Joan Littlewood had risked official censure with the anti-war satirical musical Oh, What a Lovely War!, Hedley did the same by staging the first production in English of Federico García Lorca's controversial play The Public in 1988, despite of the recently passed Section 28 of the Local Government Act banning the promotion of homosexuality (although one actor noted that the play was "so wrapped up in symbolism that no one had any idea what it was about").
Hedley was also delighted when questions were 'asked' in the House of Commons about another show, in which Mrs Thatcher did a striptease, throwing away an item of clothing with each new cut in government spending. Other productions dealt with racial prejudice and violence, the poll tax (treated not as an opportunity for agitprop but as a springboard for farce), or simply life in East London.
He stopped at almost nothing to get publicity for his theater. The Telegraph's critic, Charles Spencer, recalled how, to drum up interest in one of his variety nights, he promised a dog that danced, even though he had no access to such a dog: 'When the photographers of national newspapers demanded a photocall, he borrowed a dog from an actress. But why was there no dancing? the photographers asked. He was suffering from influenza, the statement said, and could not dance that day. But it would definitely be All Right On The Night.
"As the performance approached, Hedley realized that the non-existent dog would have to die. The press was solemnly informed that the Terpsichorean dog had been run over by an articulated truck on the way to the theater. Reporters who tried to interview the 'owner' about her tragic loss were told she was too distressed to answer the phone."
Michael Bertenshaw, a veteran pantomime lady in Theater Royal productions, many of them directed by Hedley, recalled that his shows "all had that gritty quality you'd expect from Music Hall": "Other directors I've worked with touch annoyed when things don't go well. But sometimes things would go terribly wrong for Philip and you'd look up at the end of a run and see him wiping his eyes and crying with laughter because everyone had gotten into such a mess and on it somehow managed to get out. .
"Some directors are very autocratic; Philip is great at celebrating what actors do and bringing the chaos together and putting it on stage.
But beneath Hedley's theatrics, his publicity stunts and his infectious high-pitched giggle, Charles Spencer discovered a man of 'almost Puritan idealism'. He has been one of the most outspoken critics of corporate sponsorship of the arts, arguing that overreliance on sponsorship can easily lead to self-censorship by arts organizations anxious not to offend their patrons.
Hedley himself would recall being approached by a West End management company. "They offered me double my salary without knowing what it was, and an office in Wardour Street with air conditioning and wall-to-wall carpet. If they thought those values were important to me, they were talking to the wrong person."
Philip David Hedley was born into a working-class family in Manchester on April 10, 1938 and emigrated to Australia with his family in 1951. His love affair with theater began at the University of Sydney, where he studied English and education 'on paper', but became increasingly involved in drama.
Returning to Britain, he went to the Theater Royal to see a Ben Jonson play, Every Man in His Humor, and heard two tea ladies chatting in the cafe beforehand. "The real Cockney accent was new to me at the time," he recalls. "I postponed the theater visit because I wanted to hear their stories. When I participated, the piece was exactly the same as the two ladies: the same rhythm, the same sparkle and directness. It was breathtaking."
Then he walked into the foyer and asked the house manager what he could do to be part of it: "That question changed the course of my life."
Hedley was one of the first students to enroll at the E15 Acting School, founded in 1961 by members of Joan Littlewood's company. But he soon realized he was more of a director than an actor, and spent a few years freelancing around the country and the world - 'from West End musicals to a Khartoum schoolyard' - before returning to Joan Littlewood, who gave him a five-hour interview to be her assistant.
He remembered her as "demanding and challenging... wonderful and hellish." She attacked people and eventually she went after me. She accused me of everything imaginable, down to my offspring and my testicles."
When Joan Littlewood moved to France in 1974, following the death of her partner Gerry Raffles, a turbulent period followed with the arrival and departure of three artistic directors, Ken Hill, Maxwell Shaw and finally Clare Venables. In 1979, when Hedley agreed to take over, the Arts Council threatened to withdraw his grant if the theater could not justify its continuation within two years.
Hedley soon began to make his mark by casting the country's first black leading boy in Jack and the Beanstalk. Other early successes included new plays such as Mustapha Matura's Welcome Home Jacko, Barrie Keeffe's Sus and Better Times and Nell Dunn's Steaming. He produced and directed more than 160 productions before retiring in 2004 and becoming director emeritus. He was succeeded by Kerry Michael, assistant director at the theater and Hedley's former assistant.
Hedley remained active, teaching, lecturing, giving workshops and serving on numerous Arts Council and other committees. In 2003 he was appointed CBE.
Philip Hedley was unmarried.
Philip Hedley, born April 10, 1938, died January 5, 2024
