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Dateline: 26th August, 2005
Director Clifford Williams, a Fellow of Trinity College of Music, a governor of the Welsh College of Music and Drama, chairman of the British Theatre Association, and an associate director of the RSC, has died at the age of 78. He began his career at the age of 19 just after the war but his career began to take off in the fifties when he founded the Mime Theatre Company for whom he created and directed some twenty shows. He then moved to Canterbury's Marlowe Theatre, then the Queen's at Hornchurch, and also directed numerous productions at the Arts Theatre in London. He joined the RSC in 1961 and directed David Rudkin’s Afore Night Come for them at the Arts. Although this was a successful production, part of an experimental season, it was eclipsed by his Stratford production of The Comedy of Errors which toured, with Peter Brook's King Lear, starring Paul Scofield, throughout Europe and to Russia and America. This established his reputation and led to invitations to direct productions throughout the world, from Europe to North America to Japan. It was even performed before the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Windosr Castle. He went on to direct a wide range of productions, including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Hochhuth, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Pirandello, Shaffer, Bennett and Whitemore, amongst the latter's plays was Breaking the Code with Derek Jacobi. The production which earned him the most moneny, however, was Kenneth Tynan's nude review Oh, Calcutta! in 1970. His last major production was in 1998: Strindberg's The Father, with Frank Langella, in New York and Los Angeles. He died of cancer on 20th August and is survived by his second wife, Josiane Peset, and two daughters. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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