Patrick Garland

Patrick Ewart Garland (10 April 1935 – 19 April 2013) was a British director, writer and actor.

Career

Garland was educated at St Mary's College, Southampton, and St Edmund Hall, Oxford where he studied English and was Literary Editor of Isis, President of the Oxford University Poetry Society and President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. and in 1958 played Henry V directed by Peter Dews in Magdalen College deer park. Garland's poetry had appeared in John Lehmann's The London Magazine and the annual PEN anthology during his teens. He was photographed in Oxford at 23 by Lord Snowdon and later. His maternal grandfather was an artist and editor of Connoisseur Magazine, Herbert Granville Fell.

His appearances as an actor included An Age of Kings, where he played Prince John in Henry IV, Part 2 and Clarence in Richard III, among others.

Garland started Poetry International in 1967 with Ted Hughes and Charles Osborne. He was a director and producer for the BBC's Music and Arts Department (1962–1974), and worked on its Monitor series. In 1964, he directed the Monitor film, "Down Cemetery Road", about Philip Larkin, in which John Betjeman also appeared. His work with the BBC arts department included interviews with Noël Coward (1969), Stevie Smith, and Marcel Marceau. His television film of The Snow Goose (1971) won a Golden Globe for "Best Movie made for TV", and was nominated for both a BAFTA and an Emmy.

Meanwhile, his career in the theatre had begun to develop. In 1967 he created a one-man show based on John Aubrey's Brief Lives with Roy Dotrice (and Michael Williams in a later revival) and the following year directed the original production of Alan Bennett's Forty Years On with John Gielgud as the headmaster of a decaying public school called Albion House. In the mid-1970s, the musical Billy, based on Billy Liar, with Michael Crawford in the lead was performed at Drury Lane, He served as the Artistic Director for the Chichester Festival Theatre twice, 1981–1985 and 1990–1994, where he directed over 20 productions. He also raised money to build and open the theatre's second auditorium, the Minerva Theatre, Chichester. He was the only director to have had four plays running in the West End of London at the same time.

In 1978 Garland directed Under the Greenwood Tree at Salisbury Playhouse. This production transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand London West End in the spring of 1979. In 1980, Garland was responsible for the York Mystery Plays. He directed the revival of My Fair Lady on Broadway in the early 1980s with Rex Harrison (about whom he wrote The Incomparable Rex) and Don Giovanni and in Japan, Handel's opera Ottone. He also directed Eileen Atkins in his own adaptation of Virginia Woolf's book A Room of One's Own.

In 2000, he directed Simon Callow in The Mystery of Charles Dickens by Peter Ackroyd, followed by a tour that culminated in Australia and Broadway (the 2012 revival did not directly involve Garland), and Joan Collins in Full Circle by Alan Melville. He also worked with Alan Bennett again, directing Patricia Routledge in the second Talking Heads and Bennett himself in Telling Tales.

He directed the film of Ibsen's A Doll's House (1973) with Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Richardson, and his 1971 television film of The Snow Goose won Golden Globe: "Best Movie made for TV" and was nominated for both a BAFTA award and an Emmy. He directed Fanfare for Elizabeth at Covent Garden on Queen Elizabeth II's 60th Birthday, and in 1986 at Westminster Abbey Celebration of a Broadcaster. of the late Richard Dimbleby. 1989 he directed the Thanksgiving Service in Westminster Abbey for Lord Olivier. In 1998 Garland devised 'A Christmas Glory' for the 300th anniversary of St Paul's Cathedral. He also devised and presented several performances for the Charleston Festival.

Personal life

Garland was married to the actress Alexandra Bastedo from 1980; the wedding took place at Chichester Cathedral. He was awarded Honorary D Litt at the University of Southampton 1994 and an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1997.

Memoirs and book on Corsica

Garland had been working on his memoirs, as well as a book about Corsica, that both remained unfinished at the time of his death. It was announced that his memoirs would be completed by Simon Callow.

Archive

After Garland's death the British Library acquired his archive including diaries and journals, personal and professional correspondencve (including extensive correspondence with Alan Bennett and Ted Hughes), production files, prompt books and directors’ annotated scripts and material relating to Poetry International which Garland founded with Ted Hughes and the inaugural festival at London’s Southbank Centre in 1967.

Works

References

Further reading

• Chichester Festival Theatre at Fifty by Kate Mosse, 2012

External links

• Walker, Tim (2008). Two old stagers find vigour in Brief Lives, The Spectator, 2 February 2008.
• Patrick Garland at the Internet Broadway Database
• Patrick Garland at IMDb
• The Snow Goose at IMDb
• Patrick Garland as actor, Theatre Archive, University of Bristol
• Patrick Garland as author, Theatre Collection, University of Bristol
• Patrick Garland as director, Theatre Archive, University of Bristol