Forever Joseph
Friday, 9 June 2023

Hugh Thompson (1964) on a recent trip to Scarborough found out why the local theatre has kept the name of OC Stephen Joseph (1921-67). Theatre historian Simon Murgatroyd told that when the theatre moved to the local Odeon in 1990 it needed sponsorship. Not only did Joseph found the extremely successful theatre in the round in the 1950s but insisted that all his players in Elizabethan style should become writers.

One actor was Alan Ayckbourn, who has written eighty-plus plays and earned a knighthood. He is fulsome in his debt and credit to Joseph and donated £400k on the insistence that the theatre would forever bear his mentor’s name.