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James Roose-Evans - Director
James has a distinguished reputation here and in America as a theatre director and author. His
stage successes include his adaptations of Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, which he directed at
the Garrick Theatre, and Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road, which he directed in the West End
and on Broadway, winning him awards on both sides of the Atlantic for Best Director and Best Play.
Other productions in the West End include Colin Spencer’s Spitting Image, Ian Curteis’ A
Personal Affair, Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, Scott Forbes’ Mate, George Axelrod’s Seven
Year Itch, as well as his celebrated production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives, which resulted
in what Coward always referred to as ‘Dad’s renaissance’. At Chichester Festival Theatre he
directed Sir Donald Sinden in a major revival of Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed. He has
directed both Shakespeare’s Pericles and Macbeth, for the Ludlow Festival. He also directed Sir
John Gielgud in Hugh Whitemore’s The Best of Friends, and directed the equally legendary Edwige Feuillère in the
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French production of the same play in Paris. In 2004 he is to direct a new production of the
play starring Patricia Routledge, as well as The Fourth Presence, by Anthony Horowitz who last
year won a BAFTA for his TV series Foyles’ War.
He founded the Hampstead Theatre in London, and in Wales, the Bleddfa Centre for the Creative
Spirit, which next year celebrates its 30th anniversary. He wrote especially for Maureen Lipman
the entertainment Re:Joyce! which had three sell-out seasons in the West End, and he also edited
Joyce Grenfell’s letters to her mother, Darling Ma, as well as her wartime journals, The Time of
My Life.
He is the author of the biography of the actor Richard Wilson, One Foot in the Grave, as well as
of Experimental Theatre, Directing a Play, London Theatre, as well as two books on spiritual
matters: Inner Journey and Passages of the Soul: Ritual Today. He leads workshops, both here
and in America, on the relationship of spirituality and creativity, and has preached in
Westminster Abbey, Winchester, Chichester, Norwich, Gloucester and other cathedrals.
He is the author of a seven volume children’s book: The Adventures of Odd and Elsewhere, and the
National Trust has a special Odd and Elsewhere room at Fenton House in Hampstead.
He has presented his one person entertainment: Kilvert with Flowers, Eminently a Victorian
(about Augustus Hare), and A Pride of Players (about the actors of the 19th century), for the
National Trust, as well as at various festivals and arts centres; while his A Celebration of
Gardens, which he devised and performed with Penelope Keith was broadcast on Radio 4. He is
also a contributor to The Oldie, and other journals.
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