The elegantly rumbustious West End theatre producer John Gale, who has died aged 95, made his name and his fortune when, in 1971, he produced the longest-running comedy of all time, No Sex Please, We’re British, by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott.
The play ran for 17 years in all, first at the Strand (now the Novello) and then the Garrick, with Michael Crawford giving the stage performance of his life as the fraught and frazzled bank clerk overrun with unwanted parcels of pornography. He was succeeded in the role by the differently, equally inventive David Jason, then an unknown.
