In 1948 my father, Michael Redington, was a young member of the Old Vic Company’s triumphant tour of Australia, headed by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. His admiration for both actors was boundless, and Olivier’s performance as Richard III, he felt, was a theatrical epiphany.
But when he married Ann Connell two years later, Michael accepted an actor’s life was precarious and joined ATV, taking on a role in live television production. He worked with Kenneth Clark in the early 1960s before the art historian’s great success with the BBC Civilisation series. He also put TV religious programmes on the map, securing a Bafta for his efforts. Michael won an Eisenhower fellowship and travelled throughout the US in the 60s during the time of the civil rights movement.
Eventually, in the mid-80s, he returned to his enduring love, the theatre, producing West End plays, which included Pack of Lies (1983) with Judi Dench, Breaking the Code (1986) with Derek Jacobi, The Best of Friends (1987) with John Gielgud and Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (1989) starring Peter O’Toole. Michael, who has died aged 89, considered the job of the producer to be “unseen and unheard, a background figure, he must deliver and present…”
My father never really talked about his childhood, but my sister, Mandy, and I knew it had been painful and lonely. We only discovered the full details after his death. He was born in Leicester. Both his parents died when he was very young. His father, Toby, had been gassed in the first world war and his mother, Kathleen (nee Mawby), who had been a talented concert pianist, was a wheelchair user by the end of her life.
At the age of eight, Michael was sent to the Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum in Essex. He hated it and often ran away. Escaping into a dreamworld fed by Hollywood films whenever he could bunk off and go to the local cinema, he developed a vivid imagination with the help of the Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire.
At the age of 14 he discovered the theatre which would become his passion. In 1945 he started working at Shanklin Repertory theatre on the Isle of Wight where he met Ann. Rep blossomed in postwar Britain; it was the golden age of theatre and the couple embraced the thespian family as their natural home.
Never short of a humorous anecdote, and always full of surprises, my father was sanguine and empathetic to the end, above all a family man and a devoted husband, father and grandfather.
Ann predeceased him. He is survived by me and Mandy, and three grandchildren, Holly, Finn and Mia.
