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Dateline: 19th October, 2004
Eclipse Award for Hedley Philip Hedley, who recently stepped down as artistic director of the Theatre Royal Stratford East, has been named as the first individual winner of the Arts Council of England’s Eclipse Award.
All previous nominees and winners were theatre companies. The annual award is given to an individual or company who has contributed the most to combating racism in theatre.
The presenter of the award was Kulvinder Ghir, who was one of the four stars of TV’s Goodness Gracious Me. He said, “Philip Hedley richly deserves this award for all the pioneering black and Asian work he has presented at Stratford East. He was never afraid to take risks.”
In his 25 years at Stratford East, Philip Hedley has staged many more first productions by black and Asian writers than any other British theatre.
In accepting the award, he said, “I am immensely grateful to the black and Asian artists, numbering more than a thousand, who have contributed so much to Stratford East in my time there. Without them, the Theatre Royal may not have survived. The black musical Five Guys Named Moe was a big West End success, and its profits allowed the Theatre Royal to go on taking risks with new plays during the 1990’s, when many British theatres fell on hard times.”
Many of the Asian and black stars who appeared at Stratford East went on to national fame on TV, but they still regard the Theatre Royal as their home theatre. These include Rudolph Walker and Gary Beadle of EastEnders, Meera Syal of The Kumars, Nina Wadia and Kulvinder Ghir of Goodness Gracious Me, Shobna Gulati of Coronation Street, Cyril Nri and Brian Bovell of The Bill, and Jo Martin and Robbie Gee of The Crouches.
The Theatre Royal’s latest success, The Big Life, is due to go into the West End next spring. That achievement will make it the first British black musical in the West End. Such is the huge demand for tickets from local audiences to see the show again, the Theatre Royal’s new director, Kerry Michael, is hoping to arrange to bring it back to Stratford East in February.
Philip Hedley commented, “It will be tremendous for me to see the final production staged in my time at Stratford East going to the West End. It represents the joyful culmination of all the development work we have been doing on new musicals at Stratford East. It will be an added bonus if Kerry succeeds in bringing it back to the Theatre Royal first to reward our loyal audiences.” Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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