In a career that spanned half a century, he directed and wrote several successful plays, as well as acting in a wide range of drama for television, stage, radio and film.
Adeyemi Olanrewaju Goodman Ajibade was born a royal prince of the house of Ọ̀ràngún from Ìlá Òràngún,[6] Osun State, in the south-west of Nigeria.
[6] Alongside performers who included Yulisa Amadu Maddy, Leslie Palmer, Eddie Tagoe, Karene Wallace, Basil Wanzira, and Elvania Zirimu, among others, Ajibade featured in a production of Lindsay Barrett's Blackblast!
filmed in 1973 for a special edition of the BBC Two arts and entertainment programme Full House devoted to the work of West Indian writers, artists, musicians and film-makers.
[10][11][12] Ajibade's acting portfolio would eventually encompass roles in television series such as Armchair Theatre (starring in 1963 in The Chocolate Tree by Andrew Sinclair, together with Earl Cameron and Peter McEnery),[13] Danger Man (1965), Dixon of Dock Green (1968), Douglas Botting's The Black Safari (1972), The Fosters (1976), Prisoners of Conscience (1981), and Silent Witness (1996), and work on the stage – for instance, in "Plays Umbrella", a season of five specially commissioned new plays, at Riverside Studios (in association with Drum Arts Centre, London) in August 1980,[14] and Nicholas Wright's plays One Fine Day[15] (1980 at Riverside Studios) and The Custom of the Country (1983 at The Pit, Barbican Centre),[16][17] and in Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs (Royal Exchange Theatre, 2001)[18] – as well as film appearances including in Terence Fisher's The Devil Rides Out (1968), Monte Hellman's Shatter (1974),[19] Hanif Kureshi's London Kills Me (1991),[20] Skin (1995, written by Sarah Kane),[21] Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and Flawless with Demi Moore and Michael Caine (2007).