John Christopher Richard O'Donoghue (13 September 1920 – 4 January 2002) was an English actor, theatrical entrepreneur and administrator. After training as an actor he performed in repertoire before his call-up in World War II. He served in the British Indian Army and by the end of hostilities had risen to the rank of major. After demobilisation he briefly returned to acting before working for 15 years in management and production in the West End theatre in London, firstly with theatrical entrepreneurs Sir Bronson Albery and his son Sir Donald Albery and then in partnership with Gervase Farjeon. In 1967 he became Registrar and Administrator of RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), a position of influence over generations of acting and theatre production students which he held for 20 years until his retirement.
Early life O'Donoghue was born on 13 September 1920 in Epsom, Surrey, the son of Rupert John Gordon O'Donoghue, a chartered architect and Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA), and Nellie May O'Donoghue, née Barnes.1939 Register (Series RG101), The National Archives, Kew, London, England From the age of 18 O'Donoghue studied acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the City of London."Obituaries: Richard O'Donoghue", The Stage, London, England, 7 February 2002, p13."Richard O'Donaghue (sic) 1920–2002", RADA Magazine, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, England, 2002.
Early stage career On leaving acting school, and awaiting call-up into the services in the first year of World War II in Europe, in 1940 O'Donoghue joined the Hull Repertory Company at the Hull New Theatre in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. He was to act in a four-month season of regularly changing drama running from July to October."Hull Theatre: New repertory season off to good start", Hull Daily Mail, Kingston upon Hull, England, 24 July 1940, p5. By the end of the season O'Donoghue had garnered a series of good reviews in the local press: "Richard O'Donoghue ... playing with magnificent emotional strength" read one."Hull Theatres: 'The Shining Hour' Well Produced at the New", Hull Daily Mail, Kingston upon Hull, England, 24 September 1940, p3. The engagement coincided with the start of the Hull Blitz; German bombing raids on the city began in June 1940.Philip Gravestone, The Blitz on Hull (1940–45), Lampada Press, 1991, ISBN 1873811004. O'Donoghue recalled performing "with German bombs falling nightly".Robert Howard, Eric Skjei, What Makes the Crops Rejoice: An Introduction to Gardening, Little, Brown & Co, Boston, USA, 1986. ISBN 0316374741. After his engagement in Hull O'Donoghue briefly joined a national Shakespeare tour before being called up into the services.
Army service O'Donoghue was enlisted early in 1941 in the British Indian Army. He served briefly in the ranks as a gunner before an emergency commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Indian Army Service Corps on 17 August 1941."Indian Army: Emergency Commissions, To be 2nd L., 17th Aug. 1941, Gnr. John Christopher Richard O'Donoghue", The London Gazette, London, 7 November 1941. In October 1943 he was listed as Captain and by October 1945 as Major.The Official Army List, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey, England. At the time he was recognised not as the youngest but certainly as one of the youngest majors in the British Indian Army. He later described his war experiences as "part grim", but he found occasions to organise entertainments and was able frequently to broadcast his poetry on All India Radio. He was demobilised in 1947.
Post-war acting career After demobilisation O'Donoghue returned to the stage and acting, finding work at first with the repertory company Aurora Productions Limited, then resident at the Little Theatre in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk."Yarmouth Premiere: 'Two's Company'", The Stage, London, England, 28 October 1948, p8. In the summer of 1949 he moved on to the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex to join the Harry Hanson Court Players repertory company. He continued as a lead actor with this company when they moved on for a winter season at the Royal Hippodrome Theatre in Eastbourne, East Sussex, with O'Donoghue taking the lead role of Garry Essendine in Noël Coward's Present Laughter."Repertory at Hippodrome: 'Present Laughter' as Opening Play", Eastbourne Herald, Eastbourne, West Sussex, 19 November 1949, p17 January saw the end of the season at Eastbourne"Court Players' Farewell Show: 'The Family Upstairs' at the Hippodrome", Eastbourne Herald, Eastbourne, West Sussex, 18 January 1950, p17 and a return to the Palace at Westcliff-on-Sea for a further long season, ending in November. 1951 found O'Donoghue in a farce at the Pavilion Theatre, Torquay, Devon"Right Royal Fun At The Pavilion", Torbay Express and South Devon Echo, Devon, England, 6 March 1951, p3. and in a thriller at the Opera House in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire."Cheltenham: Opera House", The Stage, London, England, 8 November 1951, p13.
Theatrical management O'Donoghue gave up acting at the end of 1951 to take up theatrical management. He joined the Albery family theatrical management company in London. Sir Bronson Albery and his son Donald, both theatre entrepreneurs, owned and ran two almost back-to-back West End theatres, Wyndham's Theatre in Charing Cross Road and the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) in St Martin's Lane. They also leased the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. The Alberys were the producers and managers of many new and revived plays and musicals at their theatres and other venues and O'Donoghue was well-placed to learn from them the business of production and management, running theatres, choosing and financing shows, organising publicity for them and getting the right casts together. He stayed with the Albery company until 1959.
Theatrical entrepreneur For a number of years while O'Donoghue was working with the Alberys, Sandy Wilson's pastiche 1920s musical The Boy Friend had been playing to full houses for a then record-breaking five years at Wyndham's Theatre.JP Wearing, The London Stage 1950–1959: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, Rowman & Littlefield, Plymouth, England, 2014. The show's Director of Production was Gervase FarjeonProgramme, The Boy Friend, Wyndham Theatres Ltd, London, 1954. and when The Boy Friend finally closed in 1959 he and O'Donoghue, having worked together at Wyndham's for some years, joined forces as business partners to form their own production company, Farjeon & O'Donoghue Ltd.Anne Harvey, "Gervase Farjeon", The Independent, London, 17 August 2001.
From their offices at 30 St George Street in Mayfair, London, O'Donoghue and Farjeon produced and presented plays and shows for the next eight years with the intention being to present productions of merit.
The first was The Doctor and the Devils, an adaptation of a screenplay by the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas. It was based on the true story of William Burke and William Hare, who in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland, murdered at least 16 people and sold their bodies for anatomical dissection. After being first seen in Glasgow in 1961 it took to the stage at the Edinburgh Festival to some "considerable controversy" in 1962. It then played at the Sunderland Empire Theatre, Sunderland, County Durham."Edinburgh Festival Opens: 'The Doctor and the Devils'", The Stage, London, England, 23 August 1962, p27.
A national tour and a short season at the Duchess Theatre in the West End in April 1963, named Savagery and Delights, in which Agnes Bernelle presented the songs and poems of German satirists from Frank Wedekind to Bertolt Brecht was not much appreciated. It achieved some controversy – and welcome publicity – when Bernelle's husband, Desmond Leslie, physically attacked the critic Bernard Levin live on television in protest at his review of the show."Agnes Bernelle", The Stage, London, England, 4 April 1963, p1."That TV Punch: Congratulated by viewers says man who threw it", Daily Mirror, London, England, 22 April 1963, p3.
A children's play, New Clothes for the Emperor by Nicholas Stuart Gray, at The Royal, Stratford, followed in 1963,"Chit Chat", The Stage, London, England, 28 November 1963, p13. and then a comedy, Domino by Marcel Achard with Denholm Elliott and Judy Campbell in the cast."Chit Chat", The Stage, London, 10 January 1963, p8. There was a run of this show in Brighton and it was booked to open in the West End at the Savoy Theatre but O'Donoghue and Farjeon decided at the last minute not to bring it in to London at that stage, "because they were not satisfied that they had achieved its true potential"."Chit Chat", The Stage, London, 02 May 1963, p8. It toured provincial theatres while work continued on it, but its final appearance was at the Lyric Hammersmith in the summer of 1963.
Subsequently, another comedy, Every Other Evening, an adaptation of a French play commissioned by O'Donoghue and Farjeon, with mother and daughter leads, Margaret and Julia Lockwood, toured the UK for eight weeks in 1964 before having a respectable run at the Phoenix Theatre in the West End."Chit Chat", The Stage, London, 23 July 1964, p8.George W Bishop, "Plays and Players", The Daily Telegraph, London, 12 September 1964.
April 1965 saw the opening at the New Arts Theatre in London of Kindly Monkeys, the first play by Milton Hood Ward, to generally poor reviews."Chit Chat", The Stage, London, 01 April 1965, p13.
In the six years of their producing partnership O'Donoghue and Farjeon also produced a variety of concerts and cabarets in the West End of London, in Dublin and in the English provinces.The Stage, London, passim.
O'Donoghue and Farjeon's final production together was An Evening of Music Hall opening at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1965, with the comedian Cyril Fletcher, the actor and musical star Jessie Matthews, and members of the Players' Theatre, London."Music Hall at Chichester", The Stage, London, 29 April 1965, p14.
O'Donoghue and Farjeon's partnership ended by mutual agreement in 1966, though O'Donoghue went on to produce two further shows. After a short appearance at the Forum Theatre, Billingham, County Durham, Molière's The Imaginary Invalid opened at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End in April 1968 to a poor reception."Carry on Molière", The Stage, London, England, 9 May 1968, p9.JG Trewin, "The Imaginary Invalid", Birmingham Daily Post, 2 May 1968, p27.
Finally, in October 1969 O'Donoghue himself appeared with his future wife, the actor Ann King, in Dear Mr Kenyon! at the Leeds Institute Gallery. The show, devised by O'Donoghue, was a narrative reading from the letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, presenting the story of their courtship and marriage in their own words."Dear Mr Kenyon!", The Stage, London, England,16 October 1969, p6 It was reprised with the same cast in aid of the Save The Children Fund at Hartwell Manor, Northampton, England in February 1970."Browning evening", The Stage, London, England, 19 February 1970, p16
RADA Registrar-Administrator