Peter Gill, playwright and theatre director
Résumé
Home | News | Productions | Pieces | Résumé | Pictures | Studio | Publications | Links

by date
by author
people

Loading

Bookmark and Share

Peter Gill, 1959
Pater Gill as Private 612 Williams in Zulu (1964)
Peter Gill as Silvius in the RSC's 1962 production of AsYou Like It starring Ian Bannen and Vanessa Redgrave
Peter Gill as Lt. D'Arblay in Lewis Gilbert's HMS Defiant (1962)

Peter Gill playwright and theatre director

Peter Gill OBE was born in Cardiff on 7 September 1939 (son of George John Gill and Margaret Mary Browne).  He was educated at St Illtyd's College, Cardiff.

He started work as an actor, both on stage, TV and on film.

His TV work included

  • Fletcher in The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove (episode 1.18) of Danger Man, 17 February 1965
  • Henry Revel in Dishonoured Bones (episode 1.6) of Detective, 4 May 1964
  • Stan in Deferred Terms (episode 2.24) of Suspense, 10 June 1963; and
  • A Royal Navy Radio operator in the TV series City Beneath the Sea, 1962

He was Private 612 Williams in Zulu (1964, with Michael Caine, Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins), and Lt. D'Arblay in Lewis Gilbert's HMS Defiant. (1962, with Alec Guiness, Dirk Bogarde).

Peter Gill became an Assistant Director of the Royal Court Theatre in 1964 and then an Associate Director in 1970. He was the founder director of Riverside Studios in 1976, became Associate Director of the National Theatre (1980-1997) and the founding Director of the Royal National Theatre Studio (1984-1990).

Peter Gill's productions include:

For the Royal Court Theatre:

A Colliers Friday Night (D.H. Lawrence), The Local Stigmatic (Heathcote Williams), The Ruffian on the Stair (Joe Orton), A Provincial Life (Chekhov), The Soldier’s Fortune (Otway), Crimes of PassionThe Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp (Joe Orton), The Daughter-in-Law, The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd (D.H. Lawrence), Life Price (Jeremy Seabrook/Michael O’Neil), Over Gardens Out, The Sleepers Den (Peter Gill), The Duchess of Malfi (Webster), Crete and Sergeant Pepper (John Antrobus), The Merry-Go-Round (D.H. Lawrence), The Fool (Edward Bond), Small Change (Peter Gill).

For Riverside Studios:

The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov), The Changeling (Middleton/Rowley), Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), Scrape off the Black (Tunde Ikoli).

For the Royal Shakespeare Company:

Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), New England (Richard Nelson), A Patriot for Me (John Osborne).

For the Royal National Theatre:

A Month in the Country (Turgenev), Don Juan (Molière), Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare), Danton’s Death (Büchner), Major Barbara (Shaw), Tales from Hollywood (Christopher Hampton), Small Change, Kick for Touch (Peter Gill), Antigone (Sophocles), Venice Preserv’d (Otway), Fool for Love (Sam Shepard) transferred to the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue, The Murderers (Daniel Mornin), As I Lay Dying (Faulkner/Peter Gill), A Twist of Lemon (Alex Renton), In the Blue (Peter Gill), Bouncing (Rosemary Wilton), Up for None (Mick Mahoney), The Garden of England (Peter Cox (ed.)), Show Songs (Rogers and Hart), Mean Tears (Peter Gill), Mrs Klein (Nicholas Wright), Juno and the Paycock (O’Casey), Cardiff East (Peter Gill), Luther (John Osborne); Scenes from the Big Picture (Owen McCafferty); The Voysey Inheritance (Harley Granville-Barker)

Other productions include:

Queen Elizabeth Hall: Bow down, Down by the Greenwood Side (Harrison Birtwhistle); Opera North: The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart); Lyric, Hammersmith: Way of the World (Congreve); Field Day: Uncle Vanya (Chekhov/Frank McGuiness); Almeida Theatre: Tongue of a Bird (Ellen McLaughlin), Certain Young Men (Peter Gill); New Ambassadors Theatre: Speed-the-Plow (David Mamet); Traverse Theatre Club, Edinburgh: premieres of The Dwarfs (Harold Pinter) and The Local Stigmatic (Heathcote Williams); Mermaid Theatre: O'Flaherty VC (Shaw); Nottingham Playhouse: As You Like It (Shakespeare); Donmar Warehouse: Days of Wine and Roses (JP Miller / Owen McCafferty); Comedy Theatre: Epitaph For George Dillon (John Osborne and Anthony Creighton); Theatre Royal, Bath: Look Back in Anger (John Osborne) ; Old Vic: Gaslight (Patrick Hamilton); The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) Theatre Royal, Bath; Donmar Warehouse: Small Change (Peter Gill); Aldeburgh Festival Semper Dowland, The Corridor (Harrison Birtwistle); Theatre Royal, Bath: Another Door Closed (Peter Gill); Sky Arts: Hens (Alia Bano); Bush Theatre: The Aliens (Annie Baker); Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield: The Breath of Life (David Hare); Sherman Cymry: A Provincial Life (Peter Gill, after Chekhov)

Productions outside the UK include:

Nederlands Kamertoneel: Who'll Save the Plowboy? (Frank D Gilroy);  Tenth Vancouver Festival: O'Flaherty VC (Shaw); American Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Connecticut: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare); Stratford, Ontario: Hedda Gabler (Ibsen), Macbeth (Shakespeare); Lincoln Center, New York: Landscape and Silence (Harold Pinter); Public Theater, New York: Fishing (Michael Weller); Schauspielhaus Bochum: The Daughter in Law (D.H. Lawrence); Schauspielhaus Zürich: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)

Television includes:

Grace (Joyce), Girl (James Robson), Matter of Taste (Alex La Guma), Fugitive (Sean Walsh), Hitting Town (Stephen Poliakoff).

His plays include:

The Sleepers Den, Over Gardens Out, Small Change, Kick for Touch, In The Blue, Mean Tears, Certain Young Men, Cardiff East, Friendly Fire, The Look Across The Eyes and Lovely Evening (radio), The York Realist, Another Door Closed.

Adaptations and versions:

A Provincial Life and also here (Chekhov), The Merry-Go-Round (D.H. Lawrence), The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov), Touch and Go (D.H. Lawrence), As I Lay Dying (Faulkner), The Seagull (Chekhov), Original Sin (after Wedekind), Edith Granger (from Dickens' Domby and Son). 

Home

Send mail to with questions or comments about this web site.  Copyright © 1999-2011

Last modified: 2011-05-31

Home

Send mail to with questions or comments about this web site.  Copyright © 1999-2012

Last modified: 2012-03-15