David Jones

Published Tuesday 7 October 2008 at 13:15 by Patrick Newley

David Jones’ distinguished career as a director included a long association with the Royal Shakespeare Company and working with the playwright Harold Pinter.

Jones directed his first production for the RSC at the Arts Theatre in 1962, Boris Vian’s The Empire Builders, and two years later was appointed artistic controller of the RSC, helping to plan programmes of new plays and European classics at the Aldwych Theatre.

He took over the running of the RSC at the Aldwych from 1969-1972, and again from 1975-1977. During this period he was a champion of the plays of Maxim Gorky and David Mercer.

Jones was also a successful film director and, in 1987, had an international hit with 84 Charing Cross Road, starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.

Other films included Harold Pinter’s Betrayal (1983) with Ben Kingsley and Jeremy Irons, and Kafka’s The Trial (1993) with Kyle MacLachlan as Joseph K and a script by Pinter.

David Hugh Jones was born in Poole, Dorset, on February 14, 1934 and educated at Taunton School and Christ’s College, Cambridge.

He did his national service in the Royal Artillery and in 1958 joined the BBC, where he worked on the prestigious arts programme Monitor (1958-1964).

Jones made his name as a director with the RSC and among his outstanding credits with the company were After Haggerty (1970), Enemies (1971), The Island of the Mighty (1972), Summerfolk (1974), The Return of AJ Raffles (1976), Ivanov (1976), The Custom of the Country (1983) and Barbarians (1990).

He left the RSC to take up an appointment as an artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1981 and to found a resident theatre company based on the RSC.

After teaching at the Yale School of Drama he returned to London, where he directed The Merry Wives of Windsor and Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1984) for BBC Television. He was made an honorary associate of the RSC in 1991.

Jones directed many Pinter plays for the theatre, including revivals of Old Times in the West End and Los Angeles (1985) and No Man’s Land (1994) and The Caretaker (2003) in New York.

In 2007 at Chichester and then at the Haymarket Theatre in London he directed The Last Confession, in which David Suchet gave an outstanding performance as Cardinal Benelli.

Jones was divorced from the actress Sheila Allen. His partner for the past 20 years was the photographer Joyce Tenneson. He had two sons from his marriage.

He died in his sleep on September 19, 2008 aged 74.