Actor whose long career spanned the genres from stage classics to TV soap operas

French theatre and clowning teacher and founder of his own drama school, revered by famous former students who underwent his stringent tuition

Seventy years ago, a group of radical thinkers launched the English Stage Company. Nick Smurthwaite looks back at the company’s founding and how it was the birth of the Royal Court we know today

Producer of more than 1,000 shows around the world, including the Olivier award-winning Stones in His Pockets and hundreds of pantomimes

Actor-turned-critic who founded the Empty Space Peter Brook Awards and was a long-standing fixture at opening nights

Actor and playwright who wrote the novel on which The Wicker Man was based

As Black British theatre company Talawa celebrates its 40th anniversary, former artistic director Paulette Randall and actor Gary McDonald share their experiences of its first production with Nick Smurthwaite

Pioneering founder of the Young Vic, who also headed up the Edinburgh International Festival and was an associate of the National Theatre

Actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company and teacher at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts

Director and actor whose work often focused on women’s lived experiences

Character actor and comedian who enjoyed a long career on stage and screen

Theatre chair and entrepreneur who was ‘a passionate lover of the arts with a piercing business mind’

Stage actor and production manager who served as the executive director of Triumph Proscenium Productions

Actor, theatre manager and entrepreneur who, as a teenager, inspired the author CS Lewis

Performer, director and playwright who was a founder member of the Actors’ Company and found wider recognition through TV series Wycliffe