Bob Carlton (23 June 1950 – 18 January 2018) was an English theatre director and writer. He is best known for creating and directing the
jukebox musical
A jukebox musical is a stage musical or musical film in which a majority of the songs are well-known popular music songs, rather than original music.
Some jukebox musicals use a wide variety of songs, while others confine themselves to songs perf ...
''
Return to the Forbidden Planet
''Return to the Forbidden Planet'' is a jukebox musical by Bob Carlton, based on Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest'' and the 1956 science fiction film '' Forbidden Planet'', which, in turn, is loosely based on ''The Tempest''. The show features ...
'', which won the
Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical
The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical is an annual award presented by the Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in commercial London theatre. The awards were established as the Society of West End Theatre Awards in 1 ...
in both 1989 and 1990 and has been produced in many different countries around the world. He has written several other plays and has directed episodes of the
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
s ''
Brookside Brookside may refer to:
Geography Canada
* Brookside, Edmonton
* Brookside, Newfoundland and Labrador
* Brookside, Nova Scotia
United Kingdom
* Brookside, Berkshire, England
* Brookside, Telford, an area of Telford, England
United States
* Br ...
'' and ''
Emmerdale Farm
''Emmerdale'' (known as ''Emmerdale Farm'' until 1989) is a British soap opera that is broadcast on ITV1. The show is set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, '' ...
''.
He was born in
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
, attended
King Henry VIII School, Coventry
King Henry VIII School is a coeducational independent day school located in Coventry, England, comprising a senior school (ages 11–18) and associated preparatory school (ages 3–11). The senior school has approximately 800 pupils (120 in eac ...
England, read drama at the
University of Hull
, mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status
, type = Public
, endowment = £18.8 million (2016)
, budget = £190 million ...
and, after graduation, won an Arts Council Trainee Director's Bursary to the
Belgrade Theatre in his hometown of Coventry. He was later associate director at the
Dukes Playhouse, Lancaster and
York Theatre Royal
York Theatre Royal is a theatre in St Leonard's Place, in York, England, which dates back to 1744. The theatre currently seats 750 people. Whilst the theatre is traditionally a proscenium theatre, it was reconfigured for a season in 2011 to offe ...
before becoming artistic director of the
Bubble Theatre Company in 1979. He held this post until 1984 and while there he created and first staged ''Return to the Forbidden Planet''.
From 1997 to 2014 he was the artistic director of the
Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch
The Queen's Theatre is a 507-seat mid-scale producing theatre located in Hornchurch in the London Borough of Havering, east London.
History
Hornchurch Urban District Council purchased a derelict cinema on Station Lane (the site of the present ...
. On 17 September 2014, it was announced that he was stepping down from the position to focus on his writing.
It was announced on 19 January 2018 that he had died from cancer the previous day.
References
External links
www.filmreference.com biography*
1950 births
2018 deaths
English theatre directors
People educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry
Artists from Coventry
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