Playwright Sarah Kane dies, aged 28
Sarah Kane, author of Blasted and Cleansed (Royal Court) and Crave (Traverse), has committed suicide just days after her 28th birthday. She is believed to have hanged herself.
Derek Nimmo, famous for his clerical comedy roles but latterly a succesful theatrical impressario, has died. He was in his sixties.Actress Diane Bull has died, aged 46. She has been associated with theplays of Alan Ayckbourn for man years. Her last appeaance was in Ivanov at the Almeida. She and her partner, director Alan Cohen, have two children.
BECTU members at the National Theatre have demanded a pay rise at least equal to that of the management and are lkely to initiate a formal dispute wit the company, including industrial action, if their claim is not met. Management awarded themselves a 3.5% pay rise recently, whilst staff had a 3% settlement imposed.The Warehouse Theatre, Croydon, is to close after being refused a £6m Lottery grant. It was hoped that the grant, together with a further £2.1m of matched funding already raised by the theatre, would enable it to move to a new site, as the current theatre's lease expires in six months and the building is in a very poor state of repair.
Scottish Hydro-Electric has moved its theatre sponsorship from Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre to the neighbouring Lyceum. For the last six years the company has sponsored the Traverse's Highland Tours but is now moving to backing the Lyceum's tour of Liz Lochhead's Britannia Rules, which will begin in April. The amount involved is £19,000. The Traverse tour is almost certain to still go ahead - it recently got £30,000 for the Scottish Arts Council - but a new sponsor will have to be found.
The Ray Cooney Comedy Company is to take up a new residency in April - on a cruise liner. The company will perform Cooney's West End hits Run for yur Wife and Funny Money on the liner Marco Polo on a 20-day cruise from Bombay to Istanbul, and Cooney himself will do give talks and lead workshops for passengers.