At the time the director Michael Blakemore, who has died aged 95, was dubbed a double Tony award-winner in 2000 for his productions of Kiss Me Kate and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, he said: “All I can say is, thank you America. And, when I say America, of course I mean New York. And when I say New York, I mean Broadway.”
He raised the roof in Radio City, but his ironical tone was lost on the enthusiastic audience. He was recognising the parochialism of the glamour. Blakemore was never lost in showbiz, despite being one of its most skilled exponents, a director whose command of, and respect for, sheer craft was an aspect of his supreme intelligence. He thought (and wrote) long and hard about theatre without ever clouding his work with conceptual arrogance or extraneous clutter. He was master of finding the right actors, the right design and the right tempo for plays, musicals and farces. And he was a civilised, cultured man, whose taste was almost always impeccable.
