Steven Pimlott
Encyclopedia
Steven Charles Pimlott OBE
(18 April 1953 – 14 February 2007) was an English opera
and theatre
director and actor. An obituary in The Times hailed him as "one of the most versatile and inventive theatre directors of his generation". His output ran the gamut of the theatrical and operatic repertoire, from musicals, such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and popular plays, such as Agatha Christie
's And Then There Were None
, through classics such as Shakespeare and Molière
, to Stephen Sondheim
and James Lapine
's Sunday in the Park with George
and Alexander Borodin
's Prince Igor
.
, but the younger Pimlott was interested in the performing arts from a young age. The first film he saw, The King and I
, and first theatre visit, to see Christopher Plummer
in Richard III
at Stratford, both made a great impression. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School
, where he met the younger Nicholas Hytner
. They performed together in school plays and in the school orchestra. He also performed with the popular historian Michael Wood. Hytner played the flute and Pimlott the oboe
. Pimlott read English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
, where he also acted in university productions with Hytner and Declan Donnellan
.
, where he was Staff Director from 1976 to 1978. He moved to Opera North
from 1978 to 1980, directing productions of Puccini's La bohème
and Tosca
, Verdi's Nabucco
and Massenet's Werther
, and the British première of Alexander Borodin
's Prince Igor
, which he translated with David Lloyd-Jones
. He then worked with Scottish Opera
, directing Don Giovanni
, and Opera Australia
, and then worked in regional opera houses in Manchester
, Leeds
and Sheffield
.
While at the Crucible Theatre
in Sheffield, he directed productions of Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale
. In 1988, he directed a production of the York Mystery Plays
which was staged in the city's Museum Gardens, against the backdrop of the ruined St Mary's Abbey
, and which featured the Indian actor Victor Banerjee
as Jesus. Also in 1988, he directed the British première of Botho Strauss's Der Park.
Pimlott developed a wide range of theatrical work, which included avant garde, Shakespeare and popular musicals, such as the revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
with Jason Donovan
and then Phillip Schofield
at the Palladium
in 1991 and on Broadway
in 1993, Doctor Doolittle at the Hammersmith Apollo
in 1998, and Bombay Dreams
and at the Apollo Victoria in 2002 and in New York in 2004. At the National Theatre
, he worked on the British première of Stephen Sondheim
and James Lapine
's Sunday in the Park with George
in 1990, and a new translation of Molière
's The Miser
in 1991.
Pimlott directed many works with the Royal Shakespeare Company
, working with RSC artistic director Adrian Noble
, beginning with Julius Caesar
in 1991, with Robert Stephens
as the lead. He later produced Richard III
in 1995, with David Troughton
as the lead actor; Richard II
in 2000 with Samuel West
as the title character and David Troughton as Bolingbroke
; and Hamlet
at Stratford in 2001 with West again as the lead. For the RSC, he also produced T. S. Eliot
's Murder in the Cathedral
in 1993, Tennessee Williams
' Camino Real
at Stratford in 1997, with Leslie Phillips
, Peter Egan
and Susannah York
, and staged Antony and Cleopatra
at Stratford in 1999, with Alan Bates
and Frances de la Tour
(although an opening scene that showed oral sex
was dropped when the production moved to London). He was Company Director at the RSC in Stratford in 1996 and an Associate Director of the RSC from 1996 to 2002. During his time with the RSC he also had Jason Carr (the composer of incidental music to ten of his RSC plays) commissioned to write a musical adaption of Charles Kingsley
's novel The Water Babies
; in the end the RSC never produced it (but Pimlott later had it mounted at Chichester
). Pimlott also directed world premières of Phyllis Nagy
's Butterfly Kiss
, The Strip and Neverland
.
His restaging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
was revived in 2007 at London's Adelphi Theatre
with Lee Mead
in the title role. Before the show opened, booking was so brisk that the musical's originally planned six-month run was doubled. "I suppose he’s a dreamer. Even when things are going really badly he never gives up hope", Pimlott wrote of Joseph in the 1991 production's programme. "We all dream a lot, some are lucky, some are not..."
afficiando, he was the director of the short-lived Savoy Theatre Opera project in 2004, founded by Raymond Gubbay
. He took to the stage for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
in their last season at the Strand
, playing Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore
. With Martin Duncan and Ruth Mackenzie, he was appointed as the joint artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre
between 2003 and 2005, reviving its fortunes.
He directed Agatha Christie
's And Then There Were None
at the Gielgud Theatre
in the West End
in 2005, with Tara FitzGerald
, Gemma Jones
and Graham Crowden
, and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
at the Royal Opera House
in 2006. He was awarded the OBE in the 2007 New Year Honours
list.
Although he had been suffering from lung cancer
, at the time of his death he was rehearsing a revival of Tennessee Williams
' The Rose Tattoo
, starring Zoë Wanamaker
, which was taken over by his friend Nicholas Hytner
. Also in later years, Pimlott's oboe playing became something more than a hobby, and he played in a number of professional concerts.
Pimlott died in Colchester
. He married German soprano Daniela Bechly in 1991. She survived him, as did their two sons and one daughter.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(18 April 1953 – 14 February 2007) was an English opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
director and actor. An obituary in The Times hailed him as "one of the most versatile and inventive theatre directors of his generation". His output ran the gamut of the theatrical and operatic repertoire, from musicals, such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and popular plays, such as Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers which was changed by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 because of the presence of a racial...
, through classics such as Shakespeare and Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, to Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
and James Lapine
James Lapine
James Lapine is an American stage director and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.-Biography:Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated...
's Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
and Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
's Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
.
Early life
Pimlott's father worked in insuranceInsurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
, but the younger Pimlott was interested in the performing arts from a young age. The first film he saw, The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
, and first theatre visit, to see Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
in Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
at Stratford, both made a great impression. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School is the largest independent day school for boys in the UK . It is based in Manchester, England...
, where he met the younger Nicholas Hytner
Nicholas Hytner
Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner is an English film and theatre producer and director. He has been the artistic director of London's National Theatre since 2003.-Biography:...
. They performed together in school plays and in the school orchestra. He also performed with the popular historian Michael Wood. Hytner played the flute and Pimlott the oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
. Pimlott read English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.The college was founded in 1596 and named after its foundress, Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex. It was from its inception an avowedly Puritan foundation: some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance...
, where he also acted in university productions with Hytner and Declan Donnellan
Declan Donnellan
Declan Donnellan is a British theatre director and writer. He is co-founder of Cheek by Jowl theatre company. In 1992 he received an honoris causa degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France...
.
Opera and theatre work
Pimlott began his career with the English National OperaEnglish National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
, where he was Staff Director from 1976 to 1978. He moved to Opera North
Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle...
from 1978 to 1980, directing productions of Puccini's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
and Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, Verdi's Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
and Massenet's Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, and the British première of Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
's Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
, which he translated with David Lloyd-Jones
David Lloyd-Jones
David Matthias Lloyd-Jones is a British conductor who has specialised in British and Russian music. He is also an editor and translator, especially of Russian operas.- Biography :...
. He then worked with Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
, directing Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, and Opera Australia
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
, and then worked in regional opera houses in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
and Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
.
While at the Crucible Theatre
Crucible Theatre
The Crucible Theatre is a theatre built in 1971 and located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. As well as theatrical performances, it is home to the most important event in professional snooker, the World Snooker Championship....
in Sheffield, he directed productions of Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
. In 1988, he directed a production of the York Mystery Plays
York Mystery Plays
The York Mystery Plays, more properly called the York Corpus Christi Plays, are a Middle English cycle of forty-eight mystery plays, or pageants, which cover sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgement. These were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi...
which was staged in the city's Museum Gardens, against the backdrop of the ruined St Mary's Abbey
St Mary's Abbey, York
The Abbey of St Mary in York, once the richest abbey in the north of England, is a ruined Benedictine abbey that lies in what are now the Yorkshire Museum Gardens, on a steeply sloping site to the west of York Minster. The original abbey on the site was founded in 1055 and dedicated to Saint Olave...
, and which featured the Indian actor Victor Banerjee
Victor Banerjee
Victor Banerjee is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi, Bengali and English language films. He has also appeared on a number of TV series on Indian television...
as Jesus. Also in 1988, he directed the British première of Botho Strauss's Der Park.
Pimlott developed a wide range of theatrical work, which included avant garde, Shakespeare and popular musicals, such as the revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
with Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 million records, and his début album Ten Good Reasons was one of the highest-selling albums of 1989...
and then Phillip Schofield
Phillip Schofield
Phillip Bryan Schofield is an English broadcaster and television personality best known for presenting shows such as This Morning, Dancing on Ice, and various game shows including The Cube.-Early life and career:...
at the Palladium
Palladium
Palladium is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pd and an atomic number of 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired...
in 1991 and on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1993, Doctor Doolittle at the Hammersmith Apollo
Hammersmith Apollo
Hammersmith Apollo is a major entertainment venue located in Hammersmith, London. Designed by Robert Cromie in Art Deco style, it opened in 1932 as the Gaumont Palace cinema, being re-named the Hammersmith Odeon in 1962...
in 1998, and Bombay Dreams
Bombay Dreams
Bombay Dreams is a Bollywood-themed musical, with music by A. R. Rahman, lyrics by Don Black and the book by Meera Syal and Thomas Meehan,and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The London production opened in 2002 and ran for two years...
and at the Apollo Victoria in 2002 and in New York in 2004. At the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, he worked on the British première of Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
and James Lapine
James Lapine
James Lapine is an American stage director and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.-Biography:Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated...
's Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
in 1990, and a new translation of Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's The Miser
The Miser
L'Avare is a 1668 five-act satirical comedy by French playwright Molière. Its title is usually translated as The Miser when the play is performed in English....
in 1991.
Pimlott directed many works with the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, working with RSC artistic director Adrian Noble
Adrian Noble
Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.-Education and career:...
, beginning with Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
in 1991, with Robert Stephens
Robert Stephens
Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
as the lead. He later produced Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
in 1995, with David Troughton
David Troughton
David Troughton is an English actor, best known for his Shakespearean roles on the British stage.- Biography :David Troughton was born in Hampstead, North London. He comes from a theatrical family: he is the son of Doctor Who actor Patrick Troughton, elder brother of Michael Troughton, and father...
as the lead actor; Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
in 2000 with Samuel West
Samuel West
Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor and theatre director. He is perhaps best known for his role in Howards End and his work on stage. He also starred in the award-winning play ENRON...
as the title character and David Troughton as Bolingbroke
Henry IV of England
Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...
; and Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
at Stratford in 2001 with West again as the lead. For the RSC, he also produced T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...
in 1993, Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' Camino Real
Camino Real (play)
Camino Real is a 1953 play by Tennessee Williams. In the introduction to the Penguin edition of the play, Williams directs the reader to use the Anglicized pronunciation "Cá-mino Réal." The play takes its title from its setting, alluded to El Camino Real, a dead-end place in a Spanish-speaking town...
at Stratford in 1997, with Leslie Phillips
Leslie Phillips
Leslie Samuel Phillips, CBE is an English actor with a highly recognisable upper class accent. Originally known for his work as a comedy actor, Phillips subsequently made the transition to character roles.-Early life:...
, Peter Egan
Peter Egan
Peter Egan is a British actor known for playing smooth neighbour Paul Ryman in 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles. He is married to retired actress Myra Frances.-Early life:...
and Susannah York
Susannah York
Susannah York was a British film, stage and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. She won best actress for Images at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival...
, and staged Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
at Stratford in 1999, with Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
and Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour is an English actress perhaps best known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the British sitcom Rising Damp, and as Madame Olympe Maxime in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.-Early life and family:De la...
(although an opening scene that showed oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
was dropped when the production moved to London). He was Company Director at the RSC in Stratford in 1996 and an Associate Director of the RSC from 1996 to 2002. During his time with the RSC he also had Jason Carr (the composer of incidental music to ten of his RSC plays) commissioned to write a musical adaption of Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.-Life and character:...
's novel The Water Babies
The Water Babies
The Water Babies may refer to:* The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a novel published in 1863* The Water Babies , a 1978 animated film based on the novel* Water Babies , a 1976 album by Miles Davis...
; in the end the RSC never produced it (but Pimlott later had it mounted at Chichester
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
). Pimlott also directed world premières of Phyllis Nagy
Phyllis Nagy
Phyllis Nagy is a theatre and film director, screenwriter and dramatist.-Theatre career:Nagy moved to London in 1992, where her playwriting career began in earnest at the Royal Court Theatre under the artistic direction of Stephen Daldry for whom she served as the Royal Court's writer-in-residence...
's Butterfly Kiss
Butterfly Kiss
Butterfly Kiss is a 1995 British film, directed by Michael Winterbottom and written by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It stars Amanda Plummer and Saskia Reeves...
, The Strip and Neverland
Neverland
Neverland is a fictional world featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is the dwelling place of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, and others...
.
His restaging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
was revived in 2007 at London's Adelphi Theatre
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
with Lee Mead
Lee Mead
Lee Stephen Mead is an English musical theatre actor, best known for winning the title role in the 2007 West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat through the BBC reality TV casting show Any Dream Will Do...
in the title role. Before the show opened, booking was so brisk that the musical's originally planned six-month run was doubled. "I suppose he’s a dreamer. Even when things are going really badly he never gives up hope", Pimlott wrote of Joseph in the 1991 production's programme. "We all dream a lot, some are lucky, some are not..."
Last years
A life-long Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
afficiando, he was the director of the short-lived Savoy Theatre Opera project in 2004, founded by Raymond Gubbay
Raymond Gubbay
Raymond Gubbay is a classical music promoter and impresario based in London. The programme to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his starting out as a promoter says that, after arranging small scale concerts around the UK, he began gradually to promote in London...
. He took to the stage for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
in their last season at the Strand
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
, playing Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
. With Martin Duncan and Ruth Mackenzie, he was appointed as the joint artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
between 2003 and 2005, reviving its fortunes.
He directed Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers which was changed by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 because of the presence of a racial...
at the Gielgud Theatre
Gielgud Theatre
The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.-History:...
in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in 2005, with Tara FitzGerald
Tara Fitzgerald
Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald is an English actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage....
, Gemma Jones
Gemma Jones
Gemma Jones is an English character actress on both stage and screen.-Early life:Jones was born in London, England, the daughter of Irene and Griffith Jones, an actor. Her brother, Nicholas Jones, is also an actor...
and Graham Crowden
Graham Crowden
Clement Graham Crowden was a Scottish actor. He was best known for his many appearances in television comedy dramas and films, often playing eccentric 'offbeat' scientist, teacher and doctor characters.-Early life:...
, and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in 2006. He was awarded the OBE in the 2007 New Year Honours
New Year Honours
The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the New Year annually in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth II...
list.
Although he had been suffering from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
, at the time of his death he was rehearsing a revival of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' The Rose Tattoo
The Rose Tattoo
- External links :*...
, starring Zoë Wanamaker
Zoe Wanamaker
Zoë Wanamaker, CBE is an American-British actress. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company; in films, including the Harry Potter series; and in a number of television productions, including a long-time role as Susan Harper in the sitcom My Family.-Early life and family:Wanamaker was...
, which was taken over by his friend Nicholas Hytner
Nicholas Hytner
Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner is an English film and theatre producer and director. He has been the artistic director of London's National Theatre since 2003.-Biography:...
. Also in later years, Pimlott's oboe playing became something more than a hobby, and he played in a number of professional concerts.
Pimlott died in Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
. He married German soprano Daniela Bechly in 1991. She survived him, as did their two sons and one daughter.
External links
- Chichester Festival Theatre - Biography page
- London Theatre Guide interview
- Stage director Pimlott dies at 52, BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, 15 February 2007 - Pimlott's Broadway credits
- Pimlott's video and television credits
- Pimlott's Official Tribute site
- The Pimlott Foundation