Patrick Garland

Career

Garland was educated at St Mary's College, Southampton, and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. where he studied English and was Literary Editor of Isis, President of the Oxford University Poetry Society and President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. His poetry had appeared in John Lehmann's The London Magazine and the annual PEN anthology during his teens. He was photographed in Oxford at 23 by Lord Snowdon and later. His maternal grandfather was an artist and editor of Connoisseur Magazine, Herbert Granville Fell.

His appearances as an actor included An Age of Kings, where he played Prince John in Henry IV, Part 2 and Clarence in Richard III, among others.

Garland started Poetry International in 1963 with Ted Hughes and Charles Osborne. He was a director and producer for the BBC's Music and Arts Department (1962–1974), and worked on its Monitor series. In 1964, he directed the Monitor film, "Down Cemetery Road", about Philip Larkin, in which John Betjeman also appeared. His work with the BBC arts department also included interviews with Noël Coward (1969), Stevie Smith, and Marcel Marceau. His television film of The Snow Goose (1971) won a Golden Globe for "Best Movie made for TV", and was nominated for both a BAFTA and an Emmy.

Meanwhile, his career in the theatre had begun to develop. In 1967 he created a one-man show based on John Aubrey's Brief Lives with Roy Dotrice (and Michael Williams in a later revival) and the following year directed the original production of Alan Bennett's Forty Years On with John Gielgud as the headmaster of a decaying public school called Albion House. In the mid-1970s, the musical Billy, based on Billy Liar, with Michael Crawford in the lead was performed at Drury Lane, He served as the Artistic Director for the Chichester Festival Theatre twice, 1981–1985 and 1990–1994, where he directed over 20 productions. He also raised money to build and open the theatre's second auditorium, the Minerva Theatre, Chichester. He was the only director to have had four plays running in the West End of London at the same time.

In 1978 Patrick directed Under the Greenwood Tree at Salisbury Playhouse. This production transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand London West End in the spring of 1979. In 1980, Garland was responsible for the York Mystery Plays. He directed the revival of My Fair Lady on Broadway in the early 1980s with Rex Harrison (about whom he wrote The Incomparable Rex) and Don Giovanni and in Japan, Handel's opera Ottone. He also directed Eileen Atkins in his own adaptation of Virginia Woolf's book A Room of One's Own.

In 2000, he directed Simon Callow in The Mystery of Charles Dickens by Peter Ackroyd, followed by a tour that culminated in Australia and Broadway (the 2012 revival did not directly involve Garland), and Joan Collins in Full Circle by Alan Melville. He also worked with Alan Bennett again, directing Patricia Routledge in the second Talking Heads and Bennett himself in Telling Tales.

He directed the film of Ibsen's A Doll's House (1973) with Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Richardson, and his 1971 television film of The Snow Goose won Golden Globe: "Best Movie made for TV" and was nominated for both a BAFTA award and an Emmy. He directed Fanfare for Elizabeth at Covent Garden on Queen Elizabeth II's 60th Birthday, and in 1986 at Westminster Abbey Celebration of a Broadcaster. of the late Richard Dimbleby. 1989 he directed the Thanksgiving Service in Westminster Abbey for Lord Olivier. In 1998 Garland devised 'A Christmas Glory' for the 300th anniversary of St Paul's Cathedral. He has also devised and presented several performances for the Charleston Festival.

Garland had been working on his memoirs as well as a book about Corsica. Both remained unfinished at the time of his death. It was announced that his memoirs will be completed by Simon Callow.

Garland was married to the actress Alexandra Bastedo from 1980. The wedding took place at Chichester Cathedral. He was awarded Honorary D Litt at the University of Southampton 1994 and an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1997. His wife died on 12 January 2014 from cancer at the age of 67.