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Sir Nigel Ross Playfair (1 July 1874 – 19 August 1934) was an English actor and director, known particularly as actor-manager of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in the 1920s.
After acting as an amateur while practising as a lawyer, he turned professional in 1902 when he was 28. After a time in F. R. Benson's company he made steady professional progress as an actor, but the major change in his career came in 1918, when he became managing director of the Lyric, a run-down theatre on the fringe of central London. He transformed the theatre's fortunes, with a mix of popular musical shows and classic comedies, some in radically innovative productions, which divided opinion at the time but which have subsequently been seen as introducing a modern style of staging.
Playfair's first professional appearance was in Arthur Bourchier's company at the Garrick Theatre, London, in July 1902, playing Mr Melrose in a curtain-raiser, A Pair of Knickerbockers.Parker, Gaye and Herbert, pp. 1924–1925 In 1903 he played his first professional Shakespeare role, Dr Caius in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at His Majesty's Theatre. At the same time his first play, a one-act piece called Amelia was staged as a curtain-raiser at the Garrick."Theatrical Gossip", The Era, 24 January 1903, p.14 The Era called it "a satire on cheap gentility which would have delighted Thackeray."Amelia", The Era, 24 January 1903, p. 15
Playfair joined F. R. Benson's company touring in the West Indies, chiefly in comic Shakespearian parts. Back in London, in 1904, he first played his favourite role, Ralph, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and created the role of Hodson in Bernard Shaw's John Bull's Other Island at the Court Theatre.
In 1905 he married the actress Annie Mabel Platts (1875–1948), the daughter of a senior officer in the Indian Imperial Police; her stage name was May Martyn. They had three sons.
In 1907 at His Majesty's, Playfair played Stephano in The Tempest, Clown in The Winter's Tale and First Gravedigger in Hamlet, and in 1910 at the same theatre played the Host in The Merry Wives of Windsor. His roles between then and the First World War included Flawner Bannel in Fanny's First Play (1911), Steward in The Winter's Tale (1912), Sir Benjamin Backbite in The School for Scandal (1913) and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1914). During the war he appeared in light plays, fashionable at that time."Obituary: Sir Nigel Playfair", The Times, 20 August 1934, p. 12
During his Hammersmith years Playfair continued to be active in other theatres. He produced As You Like It for the opening of the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1919, and brought it to the Lyric in April 1920. He played Touchstone, in a production with set and costumes by Claud Lovat Fraser. It was a radical departure, inspired by the innovative ballet company the Ballets Russes. At the time, the text was usually heavily cut, but Playfair gave it almost complete."Shakespeare Day", The Times, 23 April 1919, p. 16 The scholar David Crystal describes the production as "bright, dynamic and musical, with young actors". At the time, some theatre-goers resented it, but Crystal comments that many critics now call it the first modern production of the play.Crystal, p. 91
In 1922 Playfair bought a long lease on Thurloe Lodge in South Kensington. Playfair and his family had previously lived at 26 Pelham Crescent. He bought the cottages with the proceeds from The Beggar's Opera. Playfair engaged Darcy Braddell to remodel the house. The remodelling had cost twice as much as anticipated, and proved a drain on his finances in the wake of the failure of his light opera Midsummer Madness. Playfair would hold rehearsals for Midsummer Madness in the garden of Thurloe Lodge. The family moved from the house in late 1924 or early 1925.
Playfair was the author of the English acting versions of Karel Čapek's R.U.R. and (with Clifford Bax) The Insect Play (both 1923), and he appeared in, and produced, many pieces outside his own theatre, including appearances in Prisoners of War at the Playhouse Theatre and The Green Hat at the Adelphi Theatre (both 1925), The Duchess of Elba at the Arts Theatre (1927), The Lady of the Camellias at the Garrick (1930). and Vile Bodies at the Arts (1931).
Playfair was prominent in fund-raising for London voluntary hospitals and was a member of the committee of King Edward's Hospital Fund. He was Knight Bachelor in 1928.
After a short illness and an unsuccessful operation Playfair died at King's College Hospital, London on 19 August 1934, aged 60. He was cremated and his ashes were buried in the Playfair family vault in St Andrews."Sir Nigel Playfair: Ashes to be brought to St Andrews: Family link with town", The Evening Telegraph, Dundee, 20 August 1934, p. 6
In 1965, London County Council erected a blue plaque commemorating Playfair at his former home, 26 Pelham Crescent, South Kensington.
Lyric, Hammersmith
in 1918 the author Arnold Bennett, who had been active in the theatre before the war, resumed his theatrical interest. He became chairman, with Playfair as managing director, of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith."Mr Arnold Bennett's Theatre", The Times, 15 November 1819, p. 3 A biographer of Playfair writes that the Lyric was "a derelict playhouse in what was then little more than a slum … this theatre seemed the last place in the world where high-class entertainment could possibly succeed".Whitworth, G. A. "Playfair, Sir Nigel Ross (1874–1934)," Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 1949. Retrieved 25 July 2021. But the theatre prospered. Among the productions were Abraham Lincoln by John Drinkwater, and The Beggar's Opera, which, in Frank Swinnerton's phrase, "caught different moods of the post-war spirit",Swinnerton, Frank. "Bennett, (Enoch) Arnold (1867–1931)" , Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 1949. Retrieved 1 June 2020 and ran for 466 and 1,463 performances respectively.Gaye, p. 1528 In The Oxford Companion to the Theatre (1967) Phyllis Hartnoll comments that the Lyric became "one of the most popular and stimulating centres of theatrical activity".Hartnoll, p. 744
In 1920 Playfair returned to the role of Ralph in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Over the next twelve years he produced and acted in a wide range of plays. Classics included The Way of the World (1924), The Duenna (1924), The Rivals (1925), The Beaux' Stratagem (1927) She Stoops to Conquer (1928) and The Critic (1928). Playfair interspersed the classics with new musical shows with scores by Dennis Arundell, Thomas Dunhill and Alfred Reynolds and words by himself, A. P. Herbert and others: Riverside Nights (1926), Tantivy Towers (1931) and Derby Day (1932). The Times commented that these shows demonstrated that Playfair's "special method – a mingling of intimacy, brightness, and burlesque – was not applicable to the classics alone". Sharp writes that Playfair gathered "a loyal and happy team of young players, musicians, and designers who, under his genial leadership, not only began to make their reputations and confirm his, but also helped to create a specific Lyric style".
Legacy
Fortnum & Masons sell a rich, bitter marmalade, made for Playfair since the 1920s and named in memory of him.
Memoirs
Playfair wrote two volumes of memoirs about the Lyric:
Films
Playfair appeared in some films. He made several silents, and what his biographer Robert Sharp calls "four indifferent talkies":
Sharp rates Crime on the Hill as "perhaps his best, a country-house murder mystery in which he played the murderer.
Honours
Notes, references and sources
Notes
Sources
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