\n<\/p>\n
Theatre director, playwright and actor Peter Gill, who has died aged 86, has been described as a “gentle man with a fierce intelligence” who had a “quietly seismic” influence on British theatre.<\/b><\/p>\n
Cardiff-born Gill performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared in films including HMS Defiant and Zulu before embarking on a successful theatre directing career.<\/p>\n
Among those to pay tribute was Welsh actor Luke Evans, who credited Gill with launching his own career.<\/p>\n
Gill’s agent Mel Kenyon said his work had a “rare emotional delicacy” that was “beautifully observed and finely tuned”.<\/p>\n
Gill is closely associated with his work at the Royal Court in London, where he is credited with introducing the plays of English writer DH Lawrence to the theatrical world.<\/p>\n
Born in Cardiff on 7 September 1939, he was raised in a working-class community and remained “fiercely proud of his Welsh heritage throughout his life”, according to an obituary written by his agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.<\/p>\n
He pursued an acting career from the age of 18 before moving into theatre, most closely associated with the Royal Court, where he championed three Lawrence plays A Collier’s Friday Night, The Daughter-in-Law and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd.<\/p>\n
“Their success revived interest in Lawrence’s dramatic work and helped spark a renaissance of his plays in London theatre circles after decades of relative obscurity following his death in 1930,” the agency said.<\/p>\n
He also presented two of his early plays, The Sleeper’s Den and Over Gardens Out, at the theatre, before becoming associate director in 1970.<\/p>\n
In 1976, he became artistic director of Riverside Studios, with his production of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It marking the official opening of the Hammersmith-based theatre that year. <\/p>\n
He also adapted Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard for the theatre, helping transform it from a “small fringe theatre” into a “venue regarded as the equal of the leading theatres of the West End”.<\/p>\n
In 1980, he was appointed OBE for his services to theatre, also founding the National Theatre Studio in 1984 and running it until 1990.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n