André Ptaszynski
Producer of hit shows from Show Boat to Matilda and former right hand of Andrew Lloyd Webber
ANDRÉ PTASZYNSKI, the theatre producer, who has died suddenly aged 67, won a string of awards across a 40-year career and was responsible for the West End revival of Evita, Return to the Forbidden Planet, The Sound Of Music, Matilda and many others as well as promoting tours for comedy acts including Victoria Wood, Rowan Atkinson, Harry Enfield and The League of Gentlemen.
Lord Lloyd Webber, for whom he worked as chief executive of the Really Useful Group, said of Ptaszynski: “He could be tough when he needed to be, but always with a twinkle in his eye and a nose for the fun side of backstage life. The West End will not be the same without his cheery figure cycling down Shaftesbury Avenue.”
In 1990 Ptaszynski opened a production of the musical Show Boat at the London Palladium. It was a huge success, winning an Olivier Award, and the Queen Mother saw it several times; one evening she asked to be introduced to the cast and crew. Ptaszynski’s wife Judith was backstage with the couple’s baby son, Charlie. On being told his name, the Queen Mother remarked: “That’s a coincidence, my daughter has a Charlie.”
It was the sort of anecdote that Ptaszynski delighted in retelling. Full of yarns and an enthusiast for a long lunch, he charmed everyone he met, even those with whom he negotiated. For him deal-making was a pleasure rather than a combat sport.
André Jan Ptaszynski was born in Ipswich on May 7 1953; his father Wladyslaw was a Polish war hero who had been released from a Soviet concentration camp after a deal between Churchill and Stalin. Leaving Russia, Wladyslaw caught a boat he thought was heading to New York. When the journey terminated at Harwich in Essex, he was obliged to disembark. But he soon settled, marrying Joan Holmes, a local woman who had helped him with his English.
Sadly for their three children, the pair did not make a happy home, and to escape domestic tension, young André would catch the train to the West End: from the age of eight he became a fixture collecting autographs outside stage doors.
He was smitten by theatre: his favourite television programme as a teenager was not Match of the Day but Sunday Night at the London Palladium. When in 1972 he won a place at Jesus College, Oxford, to read English, he headed straight to OUDS, the university drama club, and landed a part in Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author directed by Mel Smith, who would become one of the nation’s best-loved comedians.
Smith approached him at the first-night party and asked: “You’re not thinking of making a career out of acting are you? Because if you are I’d think again.”
But Ptaszynski’s theatrical ambition was not dulled. Immediately after university he produced Rowan Atkinson’s first solo show and worked with Griff Rhys Jones (who later starred in his Olivier Award-winning production, Charley’s Aunt); one of his Oxford contemporaries, Richard Curtis, later said that he based the Hugh Grant character in Four Weddings and a Funeral on Ptaszynzki.
The charm was certainly his, as was the bloom of hair (his barber observed that none of his clients generated such hair envy). But the bumbling characteristics of the Grant depiction must have come from elsewhere, as Ptaszynski was renowned for his organisation. In negotiation he demonstrated a sound grasp of figures, and prided himself on the speed with which he answered every email.
Soon after graduating, he turned the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company into a professional touring outfit. His first employee was Peter Bennettjones (who went on to found the production house Tiger Aspect). After the company toured America, Bennettjones recalled, Ptaszynski left a trail of theatre managers, hoteliers and restaurateurs bewitched by his grace and humour.
He next took his production skills to the
Sheffield Crucible, where he negotiated for the World Snooker Championship to establish annual residence. In 1979 he moved to London and set up an office at the Roundhouse with Bennett-jones.
Pola Jones, as their company was known – Ptaszynski, whose nickname referred to his Polish heritage, reckoned there was no point using his full name as no one would be able to spell it – were soon producing sell-out tours by, among others, Victoria Wood, Dave Allen and the spiritualist Doris Stokes.
One day Ptaszynski was visited by Laurie O’leary, who introduced himself as a representative of Ronnie Kray. The gangster had apparently taken a keen interest in the medium, even inviting her to visit him in Broadmoor.
“I hear you used to promote Doris Stokes,” said O’leary. “No, I do promote Doris Stokes,” Ptaszynski responded. “Not any more,” came the reply.
Losing Stokes did not stall his progress. In 1989 he produced the musical Return to the Forbidden Planet at the Cambridge
Theatre in the West End. Based on The Tempest, and billed as “Shakespeare’s Long Lost Musical”, the production featured the Ptaszynskis’ infant daughter Rebecca as the baby Miranda. He told friends it was because of her performance that it won the Olivier Award, seeing off Miss Saigon. It was the first of seven Oliviers he picked up; at Christmas he would decorate them in miniature Santa Claus hats.
Ptaszynski was keen to remain away from the limelight, however. He believed that actors should be the focus of his shows, and routinely declined interviews, once asking the editor of The Stage not to include him in its run-down of the most powerful people in theatre.
Not everything he touched was a triumph. In 2000 he produced Spend Spend Spend, a musical based on the life of the pools winner Viv Nicholson. He had backed it heavily, taking out a loan against the family home in Oxfordshire, and when, despite critical acclaim (and another Olivier), the show tanked at the box office, he teetered on a financial precipice.
It came to be known in the Ptaszynski household as “Spend Spent Skint”.
Fortunately Andrew Lloyd Webber was looking for someone to run his theatres. Ptaszynski delighted in the opportunity to control much of the West End – programming the Palladium, he told friends, was like being given the controls of the dream train set.
He also produced the BBC’S talent show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, searching for a lead for The Sound Of Music. A ratings success, it brought huge new audiences into the West End.
That particularly pleased Ptaszynski: his aim was to give everyone the chance to love a show as much as he did. Serving as president of the Society of London Theatre in the 1990s, he introduced discount tickets, free offers for children and established the ticket booth in Leicester Square.
He believed, too, in theatre’s power to change lives, backing Kestrel Theatre Company, a charity that produces drama with prisoners, as well as being a member of the National Theatre board.
When in 2011 he was offered the opportunity by the RSC to co-produce Tim Minchin’s musical version of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, he decided to go it alone once again. The show was a triumph, touring the world, becoming the highest-grossing RSC production since Les Miserables, and providing a sizeable subsidy for the company’s work.
In lockdown he had been instrumental in lobbying the Government for support of the creative arts. But André Ptaszynski’s ambition in life had been to create the kind of supportive, loving environment he was denied as a child – and his greatest production, he told friends, was at home ( just before he died he produced a 28-year plan outlining his family’s financial future).
He is survived by Judith, his wife of 35 years, and their four children.