Interview

Dan Crawford remembered

Phil Willmott remembers maverick theatre director, Dan Crawford (1942 - 2005)

London's theatre community has been deeply saddened by the death from cancer of Dan Crawford, the artistic Director of the Kings Head Theatre in Islington.

It's an overused phrase but in this case it's accurate to say Dan was an institution. He's widely credited with staring the London Fringe when 35 years ago he took over a scruffy pub in Islington and started producing theatre in the back room.

Typically for a young man trying to break into show business Dan served tables as often as he worked in theatre and when he arrived in London from New York he had the brilliant idea of combining the two. If he had no chance of making a living running a theatre maybe he could subsidize it with running a pub and so it proved. You'd find him serving behind the bar as often as you would planning new shows.

Countless actors, directors and producers started their careers at Dan's little venue and it influenced and inspired a network of similar performance spaces all over London. But there's nowhere like the King's Head. Even today it's like the queen mum of pub theatre - stately and dilapidated but with a real sense of history about it. And no wonder when stars like Anthony Sher, Victoria Wood, Steven Berkoff, Hugh Grant and Quentin Crisp all had early successes on the cramped stage.

I directed a number of projects there over the years and loved every minute of the tatty chaos. The stage really is tiny and a very awkward shape so it's amazing quite how many productions Dan was instrumental in transferring to the West End, national tours and even Broadway. The repertoire had influence too. Despite his American roots Dan loved English plays and writers like Terence Rattigan and Vivian Ellis benefited from his revivals making them fashionable again.

He wasn't always an easy man to get a long with. He never missed a trick in making money for the theatre, sometimes at the expense of those who produced there, and his save the roof campaign ran for a suspiciously long decade or more; but all his roguery benefited the venue and ultimately its artists and audiences. Financially things became very tight when the Arts Council withdrew funding in 1999 and legend has it that he never actually paid himself a wage. But Dan and the venue were so loved that there was never any shortage of stars to rally round when things got really tough.

But even when money was in short supply Dan still managed a string of Kings Head successes including Tim Luscombe's productions of 'Coward's Easy Virtue' (1988) and 'Artist Descending a Staircase' (1989), revivals of Martin Sherman's 'When She Danced' (1991) starring Sheila Gish as Isadora Duncan, Peter Nichols's 'A Day in the Death of Joe Egg'(1997) with Clive Owen and Dan's step daughter Katy in the cast, Mart Crowley's Boys in the Band (1997), Sam West in R.C. Sherriff's 'Journey's End' (1998) and Corin Redgrave in 'Coward's A Song at Twilight' (1999). But there was new work too including a lot of radical gay drama for the Aids era such as D.W.M. Greer's 'Burning Blue', 'Being at Home' with Claude with Lothaire Bluteau, Terrence McNally's 'The Lisbon Traviata' and the musical review 'Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens'.

His personal credits as a director included 'Meet Me At The Gate' (1985), 'Crooked Wood' (1990), Vivien Ellis's 'Spread a Little Happiness' (1992), Brian Friel's 'Philadelphia Here I Come!' (1992), 'The Secret Garden' (1994), Noel Coward 'Cavalcade' Sadler's Wells (1995), 'Love' (1996), 'Shoehorn Sonata' with Susannah York(1996), A P Herbert and Vivien Ellis 'Listen to the Wind' (1996), 'The Famous Five' (1996-7), 'Martin Night' (2000), 'Women Laughing' (2004).

I found him inspiring, supportive and always bursting with new ideas. If things were ever getting you down just talking to him could be a lift when he got that "Gentleman Pirate" twinkle in his eye about some new project, a casting idea, a play... and especially an obscure musical. And there was seemingly nothing he hadn't read - I could never catch him out. I'm so sad that now I never will.

He is quite simply irreplaceable

By Phil Willmott
Thursday 21 July