Frith Banbury, MBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (4 May 1912 – 14 May 2008) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and stage director.

Biography

Frith Banbury was born in Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, on 4 May 1912. He was the son of Rear Admiral

Rear Admiral

Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...

 Frederick Arthur Frith Banbury and his wife Winifred (née Fink). While attending Stowe School

Stowe School

Stowe School is an independent school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. It was founded on 11 May 1923 by J. F. Roxburgh, initially with 99 male pupils. It is a member of the Rugby Group and Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school is also a member of the G20 Schools Group...

, Banbury rejected his father's naval background by refusing to join the Officer Training Corps, later becoming a conscientious objector

Conscientious objector

A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....

 and serving in the Friends' Ambulance Unit

Friends' Ambulance Unit

The Friends' Ambulance Unit was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends , in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914–1919, 1939–1946 and 1946-1959 in 25 different countries around the world...

. He went on to attend Hertford College, Oxford

Hertford College, Oxford

Hertford College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the original Bodleian Library. As of 2006, the college had a financial endowment of £52m. There are 612 students , plus various visiting...

, though he left after one year without obtaining an academic degree

Academic degree

An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

. He trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

 alongside Joan Littlewood

Joan Littlewood

Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...

, Rachel Kempson

Rachel Kempson

Rachel, Lady Redgrave , known primarily by her birth name as Rachel Kempson, was an English actress. She married Sir Michael Redgrave, and was the matriarch of the famous acting dynasty.-Career:...

, Robert Morley

Robert Morley

Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment...

, and Peter Bull

Peter Bull

Peter Cecil Bull, DSC was a British character actor.- Biography :He was the fourth and youngest son of Hammersmith MP Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt..Bull was educated at Winchester College...

. Banbury died on May 14, 2008, at the age of 96.

Theatrical career

Banbury made his first stage appearance on 15 June 1933, playing a walk-on part in If I Were You

If I Were You

If I Were You could refer to any of the following:*If I Were You , a 1931 novel by P.G. Wodehouse*If I Were You , a 2006 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn...

at the Shaftesbury Theatre

Shaftesbury Theatre

The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...

. He continued to act through the 1930s and 40s, appearing at such venues as the Ambassadors Theatre, the Little Theatre

Little Theatre

The Little Theatre in Rochester, New York, commonly known as "The Little" is a movie theatre located on historic East Avenue in downtown Rochester, New York and a modest non-profit multiplex specializing in art film, including independent and foreign productions outside the United States.Founded in...

, the Gate Theatre

Gate Theatre

The Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, initially using the Abbey Theatre's Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists...

, the Apollo Theatre

Apollo Theatre

The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...

, and the Q Theatre

Q Theatre

The Q Theatre, seating 490 in 25 rows with a central aisle, was opened in 1924 near Kew Bridge in west London by Jack and Beatie de Leon, and was one of a number of small, committed, independent theatre companies which included the Hampstead Everyman, the Arts Theatre Club and the Gate Theatre Studio...

. After World War II, Banbury was invited back to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to direct. He made his professional directing breakthrough by directing Dark Summer, a play written by fellow pacifist Wynyard Browne

Wynyard Browne

Wynyard Barry Browne was an English playwright.He was born in London in 1911, and educated at Marlborough and Christ's College, Cambridge. His plays include 'The Holly and the Ivy', which was first produced at the Duchess Theatre in London in 1950 and was later made into a film, for which he wrote...

. Other early successes for Banbury included The Holly and the Ivy

The Holly and the Ivy (film)

The Holly and the Ivy is a 1952 drama film about an English clergyman whose neglect of his grown offspring, in his zeal to tend to his parishioners, comes to the surface at a Christmas family gathering. It stars Ralph Richardson, Celia Johnson, and Margaret Leighton...

, Waters of the Moon, and The Deep Blue Sea. The latter was one of three plays which Banbury directed on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, with the other two being Flowering Cherry and The Right Honourable Gentleman. Other locations at which Banbury directed plays include the Old Vic

Old Vic

The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

 theatre, the Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

, the Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Dublin, South Africa, Kenya, and Australia.