Brian Rix

 ( 1924 Births ) 

After the war, Rix returned to the stage, forming his own theatre company in 1947 as an actor-manager, a career he was to pursue for the next 30 years. He ran repertory companies at Ilkley, Bridlington and Margate, and while at Bridlington, in 1949, he found the play that was to bring him notice – Reluctant Heroes, later adapted for Reluctant Heroes. In the same year, he became engaged to Elspet Gray, an actress in his company, and six months later they married. They were together, domestically and professionally, for 64 years, until her death in February 2013, appearing alongside each other in many of the television , a radio series and three of the theatre productions.

In 1950 the newly-weds toured together with Reluctant Heroes until Rix managed to persuade the Whitehall Theatre management that this army farce was the ideal play to follow the long-running Worm's Eye View. It was a happy choice, for Rix's productions ran there for the next 16 years, before he moved to the Garrick Theatre, breaking many West End records in the process. His farces for BBC Television also began at the Whitehall, enlarging Rix and Gray's profile as well as that of the Whitehall Theatre.

During the next 18 years, Rix presented more than 90 one-night-only television farces on the BBC. These were often presented at Christmas or on other with viewing figures often reaching 15 million. In the early 1960s, Rix was the highest-paid actor (along with Robert Morley) to appear on BBC television. Alongside the regulars from his theatre company, Rix appeared in these TV productions with such names as Dora Bryan, Joan Sims, Ian Carmichael, John Le Mesurier, Patrick Cargill, Fabia Drake, Sheila Hancock, Warren Mitchell, Thora Hird and Francis Matthews. Only a handful of the televised farces remain in the BBC archive, however. Rix also appeared in 11 films and though he felt these were less suited to his talents as a farceur, these also met with some box-office success.

In the first two years at the Whitehall, Rix's understudy was John Chapman, who also played a small part in Act 3, which ensured a long wait in the dressing room. To occupy his time, he began the first draft of the play that was to follow Heroes. Dry Rot, later filmed, was produced in 1954 with John Slater, Basil Lord and Rix himself in the cast and ran for nearly four years. When Dry Rot went on tour with John Slater in the lead, he was joined by two young actors, Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton.

Both became involved in Rix's next production at the Whitehall, Simple Spymen (again by John Chapman) and had time to draft One for the Pot, which followed Simple Spymen. In all, seven playwrights were spawned by the Whitehall farces – Colin Morris, John Chapman, Ray Cooney, Tony Hilton, Clive Exton, Raymond/Charles Dyer and Philip Levene. Other writers of note who worked for Rix on television included Christopher Bond, John Cleese and Barry Took.

Ronald Bryden (in the New Statesman) wrote of Rix and his company in 1964 after the opening of the fifth Whitehall farce, Chase Me Comrade:

There they are: the most robust survivors of a great tradition, the most successful British theatrical enterprises of our time. Curious that no one can be found to speak up wholeheartedly for them – no one, that is, outside enthusiastic millions who have packed every British theatre where they have played. ... It's particularly curious considering the current intellectual agitation for a theatre of the masses, a true working class drama. Everything, apparently, for which Joan Littlewood has struggled – the boisterous, extrovert playing, the integrated team-work, the Cockney irreverance of any unself-conscious, unacademic audience bent purely on pleasure – exists, patently and profitably at the Whitehall. Yet how many devout pilgrims to Stratford East have hazarded the shorter journey to Trafalgar Square to worship at the effortless shrine at the thing itself? How many Arts Council grants have sustained Mr Rix's company? How many Evening Standard awards went to Dry Rot? How many theses have been written on the art of Colin Morris, John Chapman and Ray Cooney? The time has come surely to fill the gap.Rix, Brian (1975) My Farce From My Elbow, Secker and Warburg

Despite being described by Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times as "The greatest master of farce in my theatre-going lifetime" and numerous other plaudits from critics and audiences alike, no theatrical awards were ever forthcoming. Rix was always philosophical about his lack of recognition, accepting it as the fate of so many low comedy before him. Nevertheless, Rix and his company broke the record for the longest running farce team in London's West End. In 1961 he gave a glass of champagne to every member of the audience who had watched Simple Spymen. The drink was served by many of the popular actors who had been with Rix in one of his productions – on stage, on television and in films – and was to celebrate the Whitehall Theatre team passing the record held by the Aldwych Theatre team. The Aldwych farces ran for 10 years, seven months and four days, while Rix went on for another 16 years. Rix also had a particularly long and fruitful relationship with the director Wallace Douglas and with the set designer, Rhoda Gray (Elspet's sister), who created the setting for practically all of Rix's productions, both in the theatre and on TV. The Whitehall was particularly small and cramped and Rhoda's designs overcame the most difficult of obstacles.

Rix made a series of films that were distributed by Rank and British Lion.

After Let Sleeping Wives Lie finished at the Garrick, it went on a short tour before opening for a summer season at the newly restored Playhouse in Weston-super-Mare. Rix played the first four weeks and then Leslie Crowther returned and played the last six. Meantime the cast of Rix's next West End production commuted by train every day to rehearse in London, returning in the late afternoon for their evening performance. She's Done It Again, opened at the Garrick to the best reviews Rix had ever enjoyed, but it had the shortest run of any of his productions to that date. Rix could never find an obvious reason for the production's short run, for the play enjoyed a sell-out tour after the Garrick. His favoured explanation was that the play, funny as it was, might have seemed somewhat old-fashioned, as it was adapted by Michael Pertwee from a pre-war farce, Nap Hand, by Vernon Sylvaine and based upon the birth of Dionne quintuplets.

Rix's next play, also by Pertwee, was Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! with Alfred Marks (followed by Moray Watson) playing the libidinous government minister. Reviews were not as good as the previous play, but audiences kept coming and it ran for two years at the Garrick and then enjoyed another successful tour. Rix, who had never enjoyed touring, now hated the endless nights away from home, and was delighted when the play was turned first into a television series for HTV, Men of Affairs (with Warren Mitchell as the minister) and then into a film (starring himself, Leslie Phillips and Joanna Lumley). After that, during the Three-Day Week in 1973–74, came a relatively unsuccessful pantomime season in Robinson Crusoe at the New Theatre, Cardiff.

Rix was by now becoming tired of going on stage night after night, and sensing that he had reached the peak of his success, began to consider retiring from the stage. However, he performed in two more farces, A Bit Between the Teeth (with Jimmy Logan and Terence Alexander) at the Cambridge Theatre and then, back at the Whitehall, Fringe Benefits (with Terence Alexander and Jane Downs). After 26 years of almost continuous performance in the West End, on 8 January 1977, Rix gave his final performance to a packed house at the Whitehall Theatre.

Rix found being on the other side of the footlights increasingly frustrating, and in 1980 he became the Secretary-General of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults (shortly to become the Royal Society, later Mencap). He returned to performing and the stage intermittently in later years, playing Shakespeare on BBC Radio, doing a six-month run in a revival of Dry Rot, directing a play with Cannon and Ball, playing his favourite big band jazz on BBC Radio 2, and touring three one-night-only shows, one with his wife, which explored theatrical history and his own remarkable experiences of life.

When Rix took office the Drama Panel was male-dominated, but by 1993 there was gender parity on the panel – paradoxically his female successor unbalanced it once more, again in favour of men. He achieved a significant shift in funding priorities; while maintaining support for national and regional building-based theatre companies, he actively supported the work of small-scale experimental touring companies – including theatre for young people and for the black and minority ethnic communities – and new writing projects.

His approach meant he was able to cut through bureaucratic constraints. Before Rix's first budget-setting exercise for the Drama Panel (when what was available for all companies was a less than inflation uplift) panel members and other members of the Arts Council had intended to fund the British-Asian theatre company Tara Arts, but no-one had been able to source the sum required. Rix however boldly proposed that the biggest national companies were stood still, so releasing money not only to fund Tara, but also allow fresh small-scale developments, and then saw that this was delivered through Panel and Council.Ian Brown and Rob Brannen, 'When Theatre was for All: the Cork Report, after Ten Years', New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. XII no. 48 (1996), p. 373 Such willingness to take on the establishment marked his term of office. A constant champion of the interests of drama companies and theatre-workers, Rix's seven-year term of office meant that, even in a period of Thatcherite public-funding stringency, no theatre building for which he had responsibility was closed while the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds was able to open (succeeding the Leeds Playhouse) with vastly increased capacity. Meanwhile, the number of touring companies, which had been falling before his arrival, increased from 22 to 33.

In 1993 at a retreat at Woodstock, the Council agreed that the Drama budget should be disproportionately reduced in the face of across-the-board cuts to the Council's budget and the money allocated to other less popular art forms. In the absence of specialist arts officers at the meeting, Rix was left isolated and he resigned as a matter of principle. This created a negative public reaction and shocked senior Council figures into realising their decision was unacceptable. After a campaign, led behind scenes by his Drama Director Ian Brown and publicly by Drama Panel members, the disproportionate cut was rescinded.Ian Brown The road through Woodstock: counter-Thatcherite strategies in ACGB’s drama development between 1984 and 1994, Contemporary Theatre Review, Volume 17(2), 2007, pp. 227–29

Rix tried again when New Labour became the government in 1997, but again to no avail. Eventually, 12 years after Rix's private member's bill, short-term breaks sneaked through in an Education Bill, introduced by the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls. The extent of his involvement can be seen by looking at the some of other legislation altered in the same year as the Education Bill (2006). His amendments to the Childcare Bill extended statutory childcare provision for children with a disability from 16 to 18 years old, whilst changes to the Electoral Administration Bill lead to people with a learning disability being able to vote freely.

Rix discovered in the mid-1990s that the legislation regarding State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) had been altered under Margaret Thatcher. The original act had ensured that widows and widowers would receive the full SERPS addition to their state pension if their spouse died first. The change in legislation halved the amount received. Rix campaigned to restore the original payment and after a number of years arguing the point with the New Labour Government, he succeeded.