His obituary in The Stage.
West End producer and touring Bill Kenwright, known for productions including Blood Brothers and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, has died aged 78
www.thestage.co.uk
Bill Kenwright
OBITUARIESOCT 24, 2023
BY NICK SMURTHWAITE
Legendary Liverpudlian producer who started as a bright young actor and transitioned to producing record-breaking shows such as Blood Brothers, which ran for 24 years, as well as chairing his beloved football team Everton, saving the Liverpool Playhouse and forming the Agatha Christie Theatre Company
Bill Kenwright once described himself as “a simple Scouser”, but there was nothing simple about him, least of all his abiding passion for theatre, film and football. As with the Hollywood movie moguls of a bygone era, he created his own theatrical fiefdom that reached out from the West End right across the country.
A sentimental grandee, Kenwright stayed faithful to those who showed him loyalty, never lost touch with his Liverpudlian roots and arguably generated more work than any other theatre producer. Through his energy and chutzpah, he was able to build working relationships across a wide cultural spectrum – from Peter Hall to Willy Russell, Jonathan Miller to Tommy Steele, Thelma Holt to David Cassidy.
Liverpool in the 1950s and 1960s – Kenwright attended the same secondary school as Paul McCartney – must have been a stimulating environment in which to grow up. The Playhouse, which he was to save from closure decades later, was the scene of his first appearance as an actor in Toad of Toad Hall, playing a stoat at the age of 12.
Alongside every other Liverpudlian teenager at that time, Kenwright aspired to be a pop star, despite his childhood shyness. He was the lead singer in a band called The Chevrolets, and later in Bill Kenwright and the Runaways.
Before landing the role of Gordon Clegg (son of barmaid Betty) in Coronation Street in 1968, Kenwright had come to London, joined the National Youth Theatre under Michael Croft, and appeared in West End musical Passion Flower Hotel (1965) with Francesca Annis and Nicky Henson. He also appeared in a series of shows at the Leatherhead Theatre Club (later the Thorndike Theatre), and another at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. But acting wasn’t ever going to be enough for a bright young man with such big dreams.
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Bill Kenwright early on in his producing career. Photo: Tristram Kenton
It took him a while to make the switch from acting to producing because, in his mid-20s, he acquired a gambling habit that lasted well into his 30s. Luckily, he was able to channel his compulsion towards the theatre. His big break occurred in 1982 when he acquired the touring rights to Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, taking it around the country and beyond for an initial 13 years.
Kenwright later directed the family-friendly feel-good show, which was still touring (with occasional forays into the West End) 40 years later, with audiences returning time and again for its tuneful and timeless escapism.
Joseph subsidised other, less commercial, shows such as Miss Julie (1983), Funny Peculiar (1985), Three Sisters (1987) and Are You Lonesome Tonight?, a play about Elvis Presley, which he also directed. Are You Lonesome Tonight? proved to be one of Kenwright’s all-time favourite shows, partly because he idolised Presley and its star Martin Shaw, but also because its creator was his friend Alan Bleasdale, a fellow Scouser whose earlier play Having a Ball (1980) Kenwright also produced.
In an interview in 1991, Bleasdale said: “Other producers turned away in horror from Are You Lonesome Tonight?, but Bill saw its potential. Bill believes Show business is real life. He’ll go further than anyone I know to make a show work.”
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Miriam Margolyes, Bill Kenwright and Quentin Letts as judges for the Nation's Best Am Dram in 2012
A more recent Kenwright production: Frank and Percy, starring Ian McKellen and Roger Allam, at Theatre Royal, Windsor. Photo: Jack Merriman
Even more than Joseph, Kenwright will forever be associated with the musical
Blood Brothers, even though he was not the original producer of the show in 1983. It won an Olivier award for best musical on its first West End outing, but business fizzled out soon afterwards. Five years later, Kenwright, who loved the show, restaged it at the Albery (now the Noël Coward) in association with its original producer Bob Swash. It remained at the venue for three years, transferring to the Phoenix in 1991 and finally closing in 2012 after a record-breaking run of 21 years.
It also enjoyed a two-year run on Broadway, where the producer persuaded Petula Clark out of retirement to play the lead, Mrs Johnson, with David and Shaun Cassidy as her sons. Transferring Blood Brothers to New York risked everything – the bad reviews didn’t help – but he did it anyway and its success against the odds was dubbed “the miracle of Broadway” by the press.
In the early 1990s, Kenwright teamed up with the newly-formed Peter Hall Company to produce Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, again with Martin Shaw – perhaps the leading member of the unofficial Kenwright repertory – as the flamboyant Lord Goring. Thriving for three years in various West End theatres, it turned out to be the longest-running Wilde revival on record.
By the mid-1990s, at the peak of his productivity, Kenwright had 10 shows on in the West End at one time and many others out on the road. He’d also taken on the failing
Liverpool Playhouse, with its deficit of £750,000. Riding to its rescue, he ensured an instant upsurge in local business by programming plays by Russell and Bleasdale, both well loved sons of the city.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 1991, Kenwright admitted that, having felt like an outsider for years, he now wanted to be “bigger and better than everyone else”.
Almost uniquely among big-time producers, Kenwright did not rely on “angels” to back his shows. He ploughed his profits into news shows like a gambler scooping up his winnings and putting it all on one horse to win. In 1996, that horse was
A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Hall, with the Hollywood star Jessica Lange as Blanche DuBois. The costs were prohibitive, the reviews respectful and star power prevailed. It made up for the box-office flops, such as Sondheim’s Passion (1996), the musical Robin, Prince of Sherwood (1993) and a revival of Christopher Hampton’s play Treats (2007).
In 2006, Kenwright launched the Agatha Christie Theatre Company with the blessing of the author’s grandson, Mathew Prichard. The aim was to tour classy, star-studded revivals, capitalising on our seemingly insatiable appetite for convoluted murder mysteries. The inaugural production of The Hollow, starring
Tony Britton and Kate O’Mara, garnered excellent reviews and proved a worthy money-spinner over the next decade.
Never one to rest on his laurels, Kenwright also directed an excellent revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Whistle Down the Wind, in 2006, as well as producing Judi Dench and Peter Bowles in
Hay Fever, and a long-running revival of the musical
Cabaret, directed by Rufus Norris, initially with Anna Maxwell-Martin as Sally Bowles, James Dreyfus as Emcee and Sheila Hancock as Fraulein Schneider. More recently, he has toured the show with Will Young and Louise Redknapp in the titular roles.
Since 1997, Kenwright has been the proprietor and general manager of the
Theatre Royal Windsor, where he appeared as a young actor. He often used the bijou Edwardian playhouse to try out productions with a view to transferring them to the West End or taking them out on tour. A recent example was the romantic comedy
Frank and Percy, starring Ian McKellen and Roger Allam. Kenwright also produced and directed the 2018-19 revival of Saturday Night Fever, revived his own 2013-14 tour of Evita – with Madalena Alberto in the title role – three years later, to great acclaim, and toured the black comedy musical Heathers in 2023, following a sell-out run at The Other Palace.
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Bill Kenwright in 1974, just before his big break with Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Photo: Doug McKenzie
In between all the feverish negotiations with co-producers, theatre owners and assorted creatives, Kenwright found time to produce some 14 films, including award-winners such as Burden (2018), Broken (2012), Chéri (2009), Die, Mommie, Die! (2003) and the BAFTA-nominated Stepping Out (1992), based on Richard Harris’ play of the name.
Always running parallel to his theatre and film commitments came his beloved Everton, the football club he’d supported since childhood. He was invited to join the board of directors in 1989, rising to the position of deputy chairman when he became a majority shareholder in 1999. He was appointed chairman in place of Sir Philip Carter in 2004, and a year later Everton secured a place in the Champions League qualifiers under manager David Moyes.
In an interview with the Liverpool Echo in 2015, he said: “The big thing about Everton to me is that it’s family. When a goal is scored at Goodison, I don’t just jump up and down, I jump up and down and look around the whole ground, where everyone is looking around to see their mates in this great big family. It’s not just about you – it’s about you times 40,000.”
Kenwright was made a CBE in 2001, and a year later was honoured by the Variety Club Bernard Delfont Award for his contribution to the entertainment industry. He also had honorary fellowships from Liverpool’s John Moores University and Nottingham Trent.
The man who once described himself as “a Liverpool hustler” was also a self-confessed dreamer. He told one journalist: “I’ve got my feet on the ground, but my head in the clouds.”
Bill Kenwright was born on September 4, 1945, and died on October 23. He is survived by his partner, the actor Jenny Seagrove, and his daughter Lucy, whose mother is the actor Virginia Stride.
