Dates: 4 September 1945 – 23 October 2023
Hugely influential producer of live theatre.
From Electric Ice show programme (1984)
Over the last decade Bill Kenwright has established himself as one of this country’s leading theatrical producers. He has helped revitalise the provincial theatre with over 250 National Tours including Voyage Round My Father. Conduct Unbecoming. Abelard and Heloise, Forget Me Not Lane, How the Other Half Loves, Ten Times Table, Filumena, Night and Day, Dirty Linen, Once a Catholic and Make and Break.
His West End productions include West Side Story for which he was nominated Director of the Year, the award winning American musical The Me Nobody Knows, Deja Revue with Sheila Hancock and George Cole, Frontiers of Farce, with Leonard Rossiter. The Undertaking with Kenneth Williams who also directed Joe Orton’s Loot at the Arts Theatre, The Killing Game starring Hannah Gordon, and two sell-out seasons of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Vaudeville and Sadler’s Wells Theatres. In the past twelve months his productions have included Hedda Gabler with Susannah York and Tom Bell, The Jeweller’s Shop with Hannah Gordon and Gwen Watford, and Miss Julie with Cheryl Campbell and Stephen Rea. His current productions include The Mikado at the Prince of Wales Theatre, The Business of Murder in its 3rd Year at the Mayfair Theatre, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which has recently celebrated its 2000th performance, Agnes of God with Susannah York and Honor Blackman, and The Country Girl with Hannah Gordon, Martin Shaw and John Stride. Electric Ice is his 30th West End production and he has produced in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, and South Africa. As an actor, Bill Kenwright started his career, with the National Youth Theatre, played leading parts in several West End musicais and was a member of the New Shakespeare Company in Regent’s Park. Amongst many television appearances his favourite was the starring role in Granada TV’s D. H. Lawrence series Strike Pay, but he is probably best known for his association with Coronation Street in which he played Gordon Clegg. He combined much of his early credit with a career as a singing Record Producer and in 1974 he was one of the stars of the Royal Variety Show from Liverpool.
Featured shows: Blood Brothers
