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“Bill was one of the greatest producers this country has known” – Rufus Norris, NT
Celebrating 40 years as a producer, Bill Kewright was hailed as the UK’s most prolific theatrical impresario when we talked in 2009. He was in good form, revealing along the way that the two productions he considered the ‘jewels of his repertoire’ were Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Blood Brothers.
“It would be difficult to say which is closest to my heart,” he admitted. “One week it’s Joseph, the next Blood Brothers. How blessed am I to have those two musicals? I just love them so much.”
Four decades in any business is a major milestone, a milestone the Liverpudlian gave the impression had sneaked up on him, but then, at the time, the 64-year-old had ‘never been busier’.
“I’m currently juggling four West End plays, nine touring shows, productions on Broadway, a $37million movie and the other 300 or 400 shows that are in my brain at any one time,” he revealed, adding that there was no secret to his longevity and success. “All I’ve ever believed, from the age of five when I wanted to be Alan Ladd in Shane, is that if you work harder than the next man, you have a bloody good chance of doing better than him. I’ve worked seven days a week all my life – 14 hours days. If you do that, and he or she up above gives you a little bit of luck, then that’s all you can do. But you’ve got to use that luck.”
It’s a strategy that paid off, although Kenwright, who was also chairman of Everton Football Club, insisted that he’d never had an endgame in life.“People ask, ‘How do you do so much?’ Do you know what I do? I think an awful lot. I give myself time to think. I’ve always been a thinker, a plotter and a planner. There’s never been a real endgame in my life, other than wanting to be a cowboy movie star. I never wanted to buy Everton or to be a producer. All I wanted to do was act.”
And indeed he did. Before becoming one of the most powerful players in British theatre, Kenwright fulfilled his childhood ambition when, in 1968 he took to the cobbles of Coronation Street as Gordon Clegg, the illegitimate son of Betty Turpin. At the time of the interview, he was still sending actress Betty Driver, his screen mum, flowers every Mother’s and Valentine’s Day.
“Granada Television offered to write me a part in Coronation Street. I passionately didn’t want to do it because I didn’t want to get typecast, but I took it because my mum asked me to,” he confessed.
Kenwright was still one of the country’s hottest young acting prospects and still in Coronation Street when he produced his first play. He recalled, “I was given two weeks off to go to Oldham Rep to play Billy Liar, but Oldham Rep got the dates wrong and asked if I’d play the lead in another play instead – all I wanted to do was play Billy Liar. So me and my mate Nigel Humphries sat in a Wimpey Bar with thruppenny pieces ringing every theatre in the country saying, ‘Twinkle, twinkle. We are stars from Coronation Street, can we come and do Billy Liar?’ In the end we found a hall in Buxton Winter Gardens with six nights free and a stage and did the show ourselves.”
That experience stood him in good stead when he left Coronation Street a short time later. “I came out of it and my TV career was over. I was stereotyped and found that the best way to get good parts was to produce the shows myself.”
For his next venture, Kenwright teamed up with actor Reginald Marsh and formed David Gordon Productions, named after their Corrie characters, Marsh played flash bookie Dave Smith, to tour a Keith Waterhouse play.
“On tour we booked two young lads, Paul Elliot, now an accomplished writer, director and producer himself, and Duncan Weldon, now a theatre producer, to be our managers. I think we gave them 18 quid a week, we bought the set for a fiver from a show that had just closed and we did Come Laughing Home for eight weeks – that’s how it all started in 1969. Looking back on 40 years amazes me because there was no plan to become a producer, although I can pinpoint the second I gave up the thought of being an actor…”
He continued, “I’d always wanted to be in West Side Story. In 1971/72, after a huge battle, I got the rights. I remember everyone coming to audition and thinking, ‘I’m better than him… I’m better than him… I’m better than him…’ By the end of the audition I was thinking, ‘Oh great! I’m going to play Tony,’ when in walked a guy called James Smillie. He had literally just got off the boat from Australia and when he sang Maria, my acting career went out of the window.”
Liam Rudden interviewed Bill Kenwright in March 2009. Bill Kenwright passed away on 23 October 2023, having produced more than 500 West End, Broadway and touring productions during a multi-award-winning career spanning six decades.
