The Stage

Biggs steps down as Delfont Mackintosh MD

Published Wednesday 12 May 2004 at 13:00 by Jeremy Austin

Delfont Mackintosh managing director George Biggs is to step down after more than four decades working in the West End.

Biggs will remain a director of the company and will serve as a consultant for the group until 2005 while the company institutes a programme of refurbishment and expansion. He will be replaced by former Stoll Moss chief executive Richard Johnston, who unexpectedly stood down in 2000 following the group’s take over by the Really Useful Group. Since then he has been running Racecourse Holdings Trust, which operates 13 of the UK’s top racecourses.

Johnston will be responsible for running the Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Queen’s and Strand theatres and will oversee the extensive restoration and rebuilding project of the group’s West End venues, which is being privately financed.

Said Johnston: “Most of my career I have done five to ten years in each job and I probably wasn’t planning to leave racing for a little while longer but I felt this opportunity was too good to miss.”

Billy Differ is being appointed operations director, responsible for the day to day management of the group, while Graham Sykes takes over as general manager of the Prince of Wales theatre when it reopens later this month.

Mackintosh commented: “I consider myself very lucky to have worked with George Biggs for more than 30 years and I hope I can remember a fraction of what he has taught me about running theatres.”

Biggs has worked in the West End for 42 years, beginning in 1962 at the Royal Opera House. In 1964 he managed the Cambridge Theatre and in 1968 he moved to the Palace. In 1971 he was appointed general manger of the New London and moved to the Comedy Theatre in 1978, before becoming a director of Maybox. He was president of the Society of West End Theatre - now SOLT - from 1990-3, and vice-president from 1993-6.

Delfont Mackintosh has already begun a major refurbishment of its venues, with the Prince of Wales reopening following spending of £7 million. The Queen’s and Gielgud block will be redeveloped in March 2006 - when the latter reverts to the company’s control - with Shaftesbury Avenue’s first new theatre for 73 years, the Sondheim, built across the top.

Interior work on the Strand will commence in 2005, the same year as Wyndham’s and Albery theatres also revert to Delfont Mackintosh.