In 1983 I engaged Philip Lowrie for a season of plays at Nottingham Playhouse. I knew something of his work in regional theatre but nothing of his time in Coronation Street; the stage seemed to be his natural home.
In his year spent at the Playhouse his wide variety of parts included James Morell in Shaw’s Candida, the Chaplain in Brecht’s Mother Courage with Miriam Karlin and, most notably, a Scots Aufidius in Coriolanus.
He was also in plays by Wilde, Ayckbourn and Wilder. A stalwart and invaluable company member, he was always anxious to develop his craft as an actor and to widen his already considerable range.
Three years later, in my production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Lyric theatre, Belfast, he was a wonderfully self-centred Torvald; but, for me, his greatest triumph came the following year, again at the Lyric, when at very short notice and in the middle of rehearsals he took over the role of James Tyrone in O’Neill’s Moon for the Misbegotten. There he came into his own as the tragic, imaginative but dissipated figure of Jim. Working with him was always a creative pleasure and I remember him with great affection.
