Showbusiness royalty on parade … stars line up to pay tribute to godfather of the theatre
The women in his colourful life
AS the godfather of British theatre, Sir Peter Hall helped turn actors into showbusiness royalty.
And yesterday, in a cast he could only have ever dreamed of, they came together to show their gratitude.
Among those at a memorial service for the prolific director – who died in September 2017, aged 86 – were Dame Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Kendal, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Jane Asher, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen.
Also in attendance at Westminster Abbey were his widow Nicki Frei, whom he married in 1990, and his three ex-wives – actress Leslie Caron, Jacqueline Taylor and singer Maria Ewing. Sir Peter’s actress daughter Rebecca Hall, 36, whose mother is Miss Ewing, also mourned her father alongside his five other children.
The packed aisles of the Abbey heard the ‘visionary’ force behind the Royal Shakespeare Company hailed as the ‘great impresario and director of the age’. First forging a reputation with the UK premiere of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Waiting for Godot in 1955, Sir Peter was deeply involved in British theatre for half a century.
Fellow director Sir Trevor Nunn said the loss to the world of theatre was ‘immeasurable’. Sir Peter – the son of a station master and grammar school-educated at the Perse School in Cambridge – was once dubbed the ‘architect of the entire edifice of modern theatre’.
He left behind three giant achievements: the founding of the RSC at Stratford; his work in kickstarting the National Theatre on the South Bank; and in 2003, his role as founding director of the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames. In addition, he oversaw the artistic direction of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, engaging his love of music, which was reciprocated by performances by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the service. His career was rewarded with copious honours — a CBE in 1963, a knighthood in 1977, two Tony awards on Broadway and four Lifetime Achievement in the Arts awards.
During the service, his family – he had six children and nine grandchildren – was hailed as ‘the greatest of his ensembles’.