Some Sad News

I had a piece of very sad news at the start of this week when I was informed the Director Robin Midgely had died at the age of 72.

Midgley, an energetic and unfailingly courteous figure, abstemious and vegetarian, was a doughty and resourceful director. His exterior may have been officer class, but he was not really "old school". He had an inquisitive intellect and was deeply concerned about political injustice. Tariq Ali, in his book, The Leopard and the Fox, published last year, recalls that a three-part drama series about the trial and execution of Zulifkar Ali Bhutto following the 1977 military coup in Pakistan, commissioned by Midgley when he was head of drama at BBC Pebble Mill in 1985, was suppressed when it became too controversial within the corporation hierarchy.

I worked with Robin Last year on a small show of ours he directed at RADA and he was without doubt one of the gentlest, warmest people I've ever met, but with a real theatrical intelligence and an openness to new forms and ideas that puts people 40 years his junior to shame. He will be sorely missed.