[1] His output ran the gamut of the theatrical and operatic repertoire, from musicals, such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and popular plays, such as Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None,[2] through classics such as Shakespeare and Molière, to Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George and Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor.
He moved to Opera North from 1978 to 1980, directing productions of Puccini's La bohème and Tosca, Verdi's Nabucco and Massenet's Werther, and the British première of Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor, which he translated with David Lloyd-Jones.
In 1988, he directed a production of the York Mystery Plays which was staged in the city's Museum Gardens, against the backdrop of the ruined St Mary's Abbey, and which featured the Indian actor Victor Banerjee as Jesus.
At the National Theatre, he worked on the British première of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George in 1990, and a new translation of Molière's The Miser in 1991.
"We all dream a lot, some are lucky, some are not..." A lifelong Gilbert and Sullivan afficiando, he was the director of the short-lived Savoy Theatre Opera project in 2004, founded by Raymond Gubbay.
He directed Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None at the Gielgud Theatre in the West End in 2005, with Tara FitzGerald, Gemma Jones and Graham Crowden, and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House in 2006.
Although he had been suffering from lung cancer, at the time of his death he was rehearsing a revival of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo, starring Zoë Wanamaker, which was taken over by his friend Nicholas Hytner.