Prospect Theatre Company

Though noted for its exemplary ensemble playing, the company lost its Arts Council of Great Britain funding in 1980 after Timothy West's first season as Robertson's successor, leading to Prospect's demise.

Harbottle had earlier created Prospect for a single summer season at Deal, Kent, to gain theatre experience.

Toby Robertson directed the last play of the season, Vanbrugh's The Provoked Wife, with Eileen Atkins and Trevor Martin.

The Provoked Wife opened at the 350-seat mobile Century Theatre which was parked by Mackintosh in an idyllic setting beside the Thames for the summer of 1963 while the Oxford Playhouse was closed for remodelling.

[2] Prospect's first Edinburgh Festival appearance in 1967 was with Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Lila Kedrova playing Madam Ranyevskaya in Cottrell's production.

[3] At the 1969 Edinburgh festival Ian McKellen made his breakthrough performances with the company as Richard II (directed by Cottrell) and Marlowe's Edward II (directed by Robertson), the latter in the play's first professional revival for 300 years and causing a storm of protest over the enactment of the homosexual Edward's lurid death.

But alongside several Shakespeare productions the company staged such plays as Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd, Charles Macklin's The Man of the World, Turgenev's A Month in the Country (with Derek Jacobi, Timothy West and Dorothy Tutin, who won two major acting awards for her performance), Chekhov's Ivanov, and Peter Shaffer's Royal Hunt of the Sun.

A series of chamber works were commissioned, including Jane McCulloch's The Grand Tour for the Entry into Europe celebrations - an entertainment seen in London, Edinburgh, and the 1974 Brighton Festival.

[2] The strain of touring and meeting the increasingly high standards expected by theatre audiences throughout the country began to tell, and even with occasional London seasons either at the Round House or in the West end, it was felt increasingly desirable that Prospect should once again have a permanent and preferably metropolitan base to sustain its regional work.

[8] For the Old Vic, Robertson's overtures proved increasingly hard to resist in the face of poor box office returns achieved by productions staged by other companies at the theatre; against this, Prospect staged a highly successful season which opened in May 1977, including Hamlet with Derek Jacobi, Antony and Cleopatra with Alec McCowen and Dorothy Tutin; and Saint Joan with Eileen Atkins.

[13] The following season, however, proved controversial: the double bill of The Padlock and Miss in Her Teens, to mark the bicentenary of David Garrick's death, and a revival of What the Butler Saw were deemed by the Arts Council unsuitable for touring repertory.

[15] Robertson was in effect fired from the post of artistic director in 1980 while he was abroad with the company in China, Timothy West replacing him.