| "One of British Theatre’s Unsung Heroes as Both Writer and Director" |
Peter Gill |
| Peter Gill , Theatre of Wales , August 5, 2026 |
Peter Gill September 7th 1939- August 3rd 2026. Articles and productions of Peter Gill are reviewed below: 12 September 2019: Peter Gill Birthday Milestone “...Gill is one of British theatre’s unsung heroes as both a writer and director. Yet his record is remarkable. Among his 18 plays, The York Realist has achieved the status of a modern classic. As a director, he rescued D H Lawrence from theatrical oblivion, established the Riverside Studios as a major venue and turned the National Theatre Studio into the building’s invaluable engine room. His influence on British theatre has been profound. “It would be easy to stick labels on Gill and define him as Welsh, Catholic and gay. But, while those elements are all important, what most strikes me about Gill is his belief in the ultimate seriousness of theatre: something that stems from his early years at the Royal Court and that permeates him like the brand name in a stick of rock. “...Gill made his debut as a director with a production at the Court of D H Lawrence’s then unknown A Collier’s Friday Night. It was so outstanding that Gill went on in 1968 to revive the complete Lawrence trilogy of mining plays. What I remember is the clarity of the productions and what Gaskill called Gill’s ability “to take a piece of human activity and focus on it with such care that it acquires a luminous life beyond its function. “...Today, directors are increasingly judged by their ability to reimagine plays...Gill belongs to an older tradition that not only respects a writer’s text but also seeks to find a style appropriate to the play. A classic example would be his 1984 revival of Otway’s Restoration tragedy, Venice Preserv’d, at the National Theatre. On the one hand, he encouraged his lead actors – McKellen, Michael Pennington and Jane Lapotaire – to perform with the gestural flourish appropriate to a late-17th-century work. At the same time, he brought out the homoeroticism that lay behind the play’s revolutionary politics. “...Many fine plays – including Small Change, Kick for Touch and Mean Tears – followed, but it was with The York Realist in 2002 that Gill finally achieved the recognition he deserved. It is a breathtaking piece that, dealing with an affair between a farm worker and a metropolitan director during a production of the York Mystery plays, shows the stranglehold on English life of class, culture and roots. It also confirmed Gill’s great strengths as a writer and director: his emotional power, his social awareness and his ability to find rich meanings in the daily business of life.” * * * * 03 October 2017: “Uncle Vanya” at Theatr Clwyd “The critical response in Wales- and, frankly, that is where it matters- has been uniform. So in radically edited form Georgie Bulwell, writing for Wales Arts Review: “Peter Gill’s revised script, directed by Tamara Harvey and performed by an unerringly talented cast at Theatr Clwyd, is a stunning triumph. Gill’s adaptation brings the play adroitly into the 21st century, while maintaining the 19th century setting. “...Theatr Clwyd’s set is beautiful and cleverly designed. A large picture frame is suspended from the ceiling, framing a branch that hangs over the stage. Though the frame symbolises modern civilisation and the art to which Serebryakov has dedicated his life, the nature that it attempts to contain spills out of the borders, encroaching on the action on stage. “...Performed in the round in the intimate Emlyn Williams Theatre, the play is exposed on all sides and the members of the cast are offered the opportunity to fully engage with the audience. Throughout, weather effects and bird song serve to further bring nature inside and contribute to the immersion and realism of the play itself. "The strains of longing music throughout ties together the four acts, set in four different ‘rooms’ of the house. The progression from garden, to living room, to dining room, to study perfectly symbolises the movement of the play, from fanciful and teasing discussion of life and philosophy, to the formation and destruction of friendships and relationships, and at last to the play’s moral: work until you can work no more, because what else do you have to live for?”” * * * * 27 September 2017: “Uncle Vanya” at Theatr Clwyd “To say that Peter Gill knows Chekhov is an understatement. An adaptation for the Royal Court goes back fifty years and the drama of Russia has coursed in and out of the career. He is the best of adapters in that his presence is utterly invisible. The characters are of their era but their language has neither the doughiness of period nor any jarring over-modernity. In short it is language that serves the play and never draws attention to itself. Serebryakov damns himself in the directest of terms. He asserts “a right to an old man's egoism.” “Oliver Dimsdale reaches deep into the complexity but also the alienation of Astrov. He is the intellectual with no peers in his rural solitude. But he has also an emotional carapace of some hardness. Mariya's presence is occasional but Sharon Morgan makes her into a powerful black-clothed figure of awing certainty. “As for directors Icke is Icke and Harvey is Harvey. Art is not a competition. A couple of “Uncle Vanya's” linger in the memory. Both stand out but in their different ways. The emotional rush here is high. There is a point in which Jamie Ballard enters holding a bunch of flowers. He encounters an embrace of fierce eroticism and the man of forty-seven assumes the expression of a boy. It is one small instance of this production's richness of expression. Succession management is a core responsibility of boards. Companies prosper when innovation is layered on continuity. This is a very fine production that is wholly in what has become the tradition of Theatr Clwyd. * * * * 07 March 2012: “A Provincial Life” National Theatre Wales “The choice of play is Peter Gill’s, a first full staging of a short story adaptation from 1966. “A Provincial Life”, extravagant in cast size, has an awesome precision in its direction. The promotion for the show has its light-hearted side, as if the company too is a little surprised. “We’ve got wigs and beards, lorry loads of set, props and lighting equipment.” Indeed they have. In scale and production values the viewer might well be in London’s Olivier theatre. Peter Gill’s opening line is as simple as it comes. “I’ve brought you something to eat.” It is given to Cleopatra, played by Sara Lloyd-Gregory. It is spoken with perfect pitch and cadence, indicator of all that is to follow. In the first scenes Peter Gill has his players stand quite still on the large bare stage. He lets the words speak. The colour, black for men, cream or lilac for the women, helps in adding a statuesque quality to the visual imagery. “ * * * * 31 March 2009: Sherman Cymru “Small Change” , “I was surprised and delighted to find that Small Change is a beautiful and mesmerising play. I say surprised because two previous encounters with Peter Gill’s play had left me with a strong feeling of boredom and ennui. In her first major production, recently appointed Associate Director, Amy Hodge demonstrates that she has a very fine understanding of story telling and how to get the most out of her actors. “Life was very tough for a great many people in the years following the Second World War. The Driscolls and the Hartes living in one of those lines of small terraced houses near the docks in East Cardiff were typical. The menfolk, demoralised and disillusioned spent little time in the house leaving the women on their own to make the best of things. “Neighbours Mrs Harte and Mrs Driscoll were comrades in arms in this hard daily battle to keep life on an even keel. They shared and supported one another in their hum-drum visionless existence. They also as mothers shared an intense love for their sons, Vincent and Gerald. The two boys living side by side enjoyed many adventures, mooching off school, swimming in the docks and in the hard concrete lined council pool that frequently peeled the skin off their knees. But they knew they were well loved and enjoyed each others company. “Patrick Burnier’s set design exquisitely recreates the pre-barrage mud flats of Cardiff Bay and along with Emma Chapman’s lighting and the subtle sound design of Adrienne Quartly the greyness of life’s atmosphere is perfectly caught. “Through this bleakness and through Gill’s mastery of words and the rhythm of his writing emerges a strong sense of human character and determination. But the boys grow up and the rigours of life catch up with their mothers.” |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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