Ted Craig – 1940-2026
Ted Craig, for more than 25 years the director of the Warehouse Theatre at East Croydon, has died after a brief illness. He was 86.
Australian-born Craig arrived in Croydon with an impressive CV in cinema, television and in theatre, both in the West End and in New York. Craig was the first artistic director of the resident drama company at the Sydney Opera House.
But in Croydon, Craig will be remembered as a colourful champion of new writing and acting talent at the Warehouse Theatre, a converted oak-beamed Victorian-built cement warehouse close to the railway lines at East Croydon, which swiftly developed a national reputation for innovative and outstanding plays – and a cheeky revival for former radio star Dick Barton.
After opening in 1977, Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre was also home to a Caribbean nightclub and later cabaret including comedy stars such as Lenny Henry, French and Saunders, Rik Mayall, Ben Elton and Julian Clary. The theatre only ever had a maximum of 100 seats.
Craig arrived in 1985 (following a loss-of-grant-related closure, something of a theme for the Warehouse) but it was his, and the Warehouse’s, misfortune to be ill-served by the local council. The theatre closed in 2012 and the building demolished the following year, making way for Ruskin Square developments, and Boozepark.
When it closed, after its council grant was withdrawn, the Warehouse Theatre had debts of £100,000. But they also had a multi-million pound promise from Ruskin Square developers Stanhope to build a replacement studio theatre within one of their buildings.
Stanhope’s grant was paid to Croydon Council, who then used the money in the Fairfield Halls, but without ever delivering a dedicated studio theatre with regular performances.
Some innovations, such as a CRYPT – the Croydon Young Peoples’ Theatre – including an annual collaboration with the BRIT School, were lost.
Innovative: many Warehouse productions transferred to bigger theatres
Craig soldiered on gamely for a few more years through his Warehouse Phoenix theatre company, continuing to stage the annual International Playwriting Festival, including performances of winning entries in the Ashcroft Theatre.
Timothy Godfrey, a former Croydon councillor who was the Warehouse Theatre’s company secretary for many years, paid his own tribute: “Ted was a significant figure in the history of Croydon theatre, his passion and commitment both to new playwrights and to Croydon brought the type of theatre and comedy more often found at the Edinburgh Fringe.
“He was an inspirational character, with huge drive and determination in the face of challenges that would have seen the Warehouse Theatre close many, many years before it finally did.
“Ted’s leadership as artistic director demonstrated the importance of the Warehouse as an intimate theatre space to the cultural life of the town.”
Ted Craig was born in Melbourne on April 20, 1940. Educated at Caulfield Grammar School, Craig began his career in drama while still a teenager when in the late 1950s he joined the local station GTV-9, one of the pioneers of Australian television. Starting in the mail room, he was promoted to floor manager and then camera assistant.
According to a tribute by Charles Drazin, the film historian, Craig moved to another channel, ADS-7 in Adelaide, where in the early 1960s he became a producer, overseeing the station’s output including a children’s puppet shows, current affairs programme, Meet the Press, and religious dramas.
At this time, Craig was acting in Adelaide theatre groups and in 1964 he won an award for best supporting actor at the Adelaide Festival of Arts for his performance as Nonno in Tennessee Williams Night of the Iguana.
Craig moved to Britain, joining the resident company of the Lyceum Theatre, Crewe, as both actor and director. Appointed artistic director in 1968, he staged a series of ambitious productions. In 1971, he was appointed as artistic director of the Connaught, Worthing, where highlights included his productions of The Miser and Rashomon, both starring David Suchet.
Star director: Ted Craig working with Malcolm McDowell (centre) and Lisa Banes in the 1980 New York production of John Osborne’s Look Back In Anger
In 1973, he returned to Australia to become resident director of the Old Tote Theatre Company, which had been invited by the New South Wales government to be the primary producer for theatre at the Sydney Opera House. It was a time of rapid growth in Australian theatre and film, a “time of cultural emergence”, Craig called it, as he directed the Australian premiere of Peter Shaffer’s Equus, and put on a repertoire that included Congreve’s Love for Love and Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Returning to Britain in 1979, Craig directed a series of commercial touring productions that included popular acting stars of the time such as Alfred Marks, Moira Lister and Mollie Sugden.
But an artistic collaboration struck up during his time in Sydney with theatre director and film-maker Lindsay Anderson continued when in 1980 – with Anderson unavailable to direct Malcolm McDowell as Jimmy Porter in a New York production of Look Back in Anger – Craig was recommended to take his place. Time Magazine called the production an “admirable revival”. The New York Times said McDowell’s performance was “sharp and funny”.
The following year, Craig became assistant director on Anderson’s film Britannia Hospital. “It was unusual in the film world,” Craig said, “because I wasn’t first assistant or second assistant: I was assistant to him.”
Settled again in Britain, Craig met his long-term partner George Savvides, a member of the Theatro Technis theatre group, and in 1985 he took over as artistic director and chief executive of the Warehouse Theatre. He founded the International Playwriting Festival in 1986, attracting entries from writers from across Europe.
An impressive number of Warehouse shows transferred to larger theatres, including the phenomenally successful musical comedy pastiche of the old BBC radio serial Dick Barton – Special Agent. The first show, which Craig commissioned in 1998, was so popular that it was revived the following year and toured nationally. Over the next 10 years, Craig went on to direct all eight sequels.
Inspirational: Ted Craig made Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre renowned across the country
After the Warehouse’s closure in 2012, Craig maintained the theatre’s commitment to new writing and over the next five years, he found alternative venues to continue the playwriting festival.
Drazin writes: “It would have been far easier to walk away from an often sapping struggle that had consumed so much of his time and energy, but, cultivating a remarkable cheerfulness in adversity, he remained true to his passion for the stage over more than 60 years, living up to the motto of every true theatre person: the show must go on.”
- Ted Craig, actor and TV, film and theatre director. Born Melbourne, Australia, April 20 1940, died London, July 27 2026
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