Hugh Cruttwell
[1] After declaring himself to be a conscientious objector and consequently serving as an agricultural labourer during World War II, he began his professional life as a teacher in private schools but in 1947 moved into theatrical production, spending several years as a stage and production manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, Berkshire, England before becoming a freelance drama director.
He combined his academic and theatrical experience when he joined the teaching staff at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in 1959.
[2] At the age of 28 Cruttwell found work as an assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, Berkshire, England which then ran its own repertory company.
[10] In a change from the responsibilities of previous holders of the post, Cruttwell was to be in charge only of teaching and productions, the control of administration and finance being newly devolved to separate management.
[11] Cruttwell's popular predecessor, John Fernald, had had a widely publicised disagreement with the RADA Council over matters of spending priorities and executive responsibilities.
[12] As a result Cruttwell inherited control of an institution whose senior management was in some disarray and whose student body harboured deep unhappiness and some resentment about Fernald's departure.
[4][2] Starting work at the academy in January 1966, Cruttwell declared that "there have been so many strictures and so much bad blood, and this is the point in RADA's history when it must stop".
[1] Cruttwell decided his first tasks, as well as soothing the academy's unsettled atmosphere, were to establish his own teaching and production proposals, and to widen the scope of student admission.
[1] As a result, in the 1960s the RADA student body came to differ considerably from the perception in earlier years that it was a middle class finishing school.
His approach was radical: he dispensed with all the existing classes except the technical ones such as voice, movement, dance, singing, improvisation, stage fighting, make-up, stage technique and so on, and the rest of the time students would rehearse and perform plays with professional directors, and for their final two terms they would rehearse and perform exclusively in RADA's public auditoria, the Vanbrugh Theatre and the Little Theatre (later named the GBS), with occasional studio productions elsewhere in the academy's buildings.
[2] Cruttwell brought in a number of young directors to work alongside the more experienced staff, feeling it was imperative his students were introduced to truly contemporary writing and directing as well as being immersed in the classical standards of William Shakespeare, Restoration comedy and, indeed, Chekhov.
[21] Actor Alan Rickman remembered that Cruttwell's criticism of a student's performance would be "completely unsentimental, and absolutely truthful.
"[1] Cruttwell developed a reputation for nurturing talent "with a combination of rigour and personal attentiveness"[7] He told The Guardian: "It's very important for actors to hear the truth about their work.
[27] In an extra-curricular activity in the autumn of 1974, Cruttwell took over from another director to rescue an ailing production of André Roussin's The Little Hut which appeared at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End for a limited run of two months.
Several students recalled that during their time at the academy and occasionally later in the professional world Cruttwell would come to them and use his favourite criticism: "I don't believe a word you say".
[4] Many successful acting names were trained by Cruttwell at RADA, among them Stephanie Beacham, Sean Bean, Richard Beckinsale, David Bradley, Kenneth Branagh, Ben Cross, Ralph Fiennes, Iain Glen, Henry Goodman, Michael Kitchen, Jane Horrocks, Anton Lesser, Robert Lindsay, Jonathan Pryce, Paul Rhys, Alan Rickman, Mark Rylance, Fiona Shaw, Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, Juliet Stevenson, James Wilby and Tom Wilkinson.
Cruttwell was at Branagh's side while the actor wrote and directed his play, Public Enemy, and then while Romeo and Juliet was rehearsed and performed.
Cruttwell remained as an unpaid[34] éminence grise working in the shadow of Branagh and the rest of the company (including Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Judi Dench and Geraldine McEwen) for another six years as they presented multiple stage productions of mainly Shakespearean plays, and also pieces by Ingmar Bergman and Anton Chekhov and one-man shows by another former Cruttwell student, John Sessions, in provincial venues, London's West End, Dublin, Helsingør (Elsinore) in Denmark, Los Angeles and in a world tour.
[1] They had first met seven years before at the Theatre Royal in Windsor when as a talented 14-year-old she was playing an attendant fairy in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
[1] Kenneth Branagh described Cruttwell as "a modest, shy man"[21] having "a sharpish face with the aspect of a wise old eagle, and a strong, wiry body.
