Nobby Clark (photographer)
Encyclopedia
Nobby Clark is an English photographer of theatre
, opera
, dance
and live classical and contemporary music performance.
, The Observer
, The Times
and The Sunday Times
. He has also been commissioned by all the major English theatre, ballet and opera companies including both the Royal Opera, London
and the Royal Ballet, as well as extensively by the Royal National Theatre
and Royal Shakespeare Company
.
He has worked with directors such as Sir Richard Eyre
, Sir Trevor Nunn
, Sir Peter Hall, Bill Bryden
, John Dexter
, Sir Alan Ayckbourn
, and John Schlesinger
. He has also worked with several comedians on their live shows including Dave Allen
, Rik Mayall
, Billy Connolly
, and Ben Elton
and, for Noel Gay Television. In 2005 he was production photographer for the 7th series of cult UK television comedy Red Dwarf
.
having been production photographer for all previous seasons. In 2007 he presented an exhibition of black and white photographs at the Royal National Theatre
called ‘London Blues’ which included a book and a short black and white film of the same title, shot around London and with an original jazz score by John Harle
and Steve Lodder
. He took this exhibition to in New York in September 2008 where he also showed an exhibition of his photographs of the Rolling Stones at Earls Court in 1976 at the GX Gallery in Camberwell, London. 'Starf*cker', a book of the photographs, was published by Oberon Books
in the same year.
He continues to photograph rehearsal and backstage images for many notable theatre productions including 2009's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' starring Dame Judi Dench
as Titania, and directed by Sir Peter Hall.
Nobby Clarke's full archive is currently available through Arenapal.
in Covent Garden and included photographs from ‘Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Australia’ as well as a number of images from his main body of work in theatre and newspapers including behind the scenes images of Vanessa Redgrave
, Placido Domingo
, Al Pacino
, Helen Mirren
, Bruce Springsteen
, Barry Humphries
and Steven Berkoff
. The exhibition also toured to the Central School of Speech and Drama
in Kings Cross and the BAC Gallery.
Other exhibitions include ‘Photo Call’, a collection of his work with the Observer newspaper, which toured the UK and then went to both Hyde Park in Sydney and the Festival of Perth in Australia. 2007 saw an exhibition of 'London Blues' - 101 photographs of London taken by Clark over a 40 year period - displayed at the National Theatre in London.
He has also worked on many musicals including 'Cats
' and 'Starlight Express
' by Andrew Lloyd Webber
, ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’, the Cameron Mackintosh production of 'Oliver!
' and 'Rent
' on Broadway.
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...
, opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
and live classical and contemporary music performance.
Background
Nobby Clark has worked for many UK broadsheets including The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
. He has also been commissioned by all the major English theatre, ballet and opera companies including both the Royal Opera, London
Royal Opera, London
The Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...
and the Royal Ballet, as well as extensively by the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
and Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
.
He has worked with directors such as Sir Richard Eyre
Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...
, Sir Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
, Sir Peter Hall, Bill Bryden
Bill Bryden
William Campbell Rough Bryden CBE is a British stage- and film director and screenwriter.-Biography:...
, John Dexter
John Dexter
John Dexter was an English theatre, opera, and film director.- Theatre :Born in Derby, England, Dexter left school at the age of fourteen to serve in the British army during World War II. Following the war, he began working as a stage actor before turning to producing and directing shows for...
, Sir Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
, and John Schlesinger
John Schlesinger
John Richard Schlesinger, CBE was an English film and stage director and actor.-Early life:Schlesinger was born in London into a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician...
. He has also worked with several comedians on their live shows including Dave Allen
Dave Allen (comedian)
David Tynan O'Mahoney , better known as Dave Allen, was an Irish comedian, very popular in Great Britain, Australia, and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. He also became known in the United States through repeats of his shows on public television. His career had a major resurgence during the late...
, Rik Mayall
Rik Mayall
Richard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...
, Billy Connolly
Billy Connolly
William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...
, and Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
and, for Noel Gay Television. In 2005 he was production photographer for the 7th series of cult UK television comedy Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
.
Recent career
He worked with Sir Peter Hall (director) on the 2009 season of plays at the Theatre Royal, BathTheatre Royal, Bath
The Theatre Royal in Bath, England, is over 200 years old. It is one of the more important theatres in the United Kingdom outside London, with capacity for an audience of around 900....
having been production photographer for all previous seasons. In 2007 he presented an exhibition of black and white photographs at the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
called ‘London Blues’ which included a book and a short black and white film of the same title, shot around London and with an original jazz score by John Harle
John Harle
John Harle is an English saxophonist and composer.-Biography:John Harle - SaxophonistJohn Harle is one of the world’s leading saxophonists, and the most significant performer of the saxophone in the concert hall today...
and Steve Lodder
Steve Lodder
Steve Lodder, born Stephen John Lodder, , is a British keyboardist, composer, and organist. He played piano as a child and took up organ at age 14...
. He took this exhibition to in New York in September 2008 where he also showed an exhibition of his photographs of the Rolling Stones at Earls Court in 1976 at the GX Gallery in Camberwell, London. 'Starf*cker', a book of the photographs, was published by Oberon Books
Oberon Books
Oberon Books is an independent publisher which specialises in drama and the performing arts. Whilst the majority of Oberon's catalogue is made up of play texts, in recent years it has begun to publish theatrical biographies as well as books on ballet, opera, illustration, photography and...
in the same year.
He continues to photograph rehearsal and backstage images for many notable theatre productions including 2009's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' starring Dame Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
as Titania, and directed by Sir Peter Hall.
Nobby Clarke's full archive is currently available through Arenapal.
Exhibitions
From 1994 till 1998 ‘Nobby Clark’s Theatre’ appeared at the Victoria and Albert Theatre MuseumTheatre Museum
The Theatre Museum in the Covent Garden district of London, England, was the United Kingdom's national museum of the performing arts. It was a branch of the UK's national museum of applied arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum...
in Covent Garden and included photographs from ‘Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Australia’ as well as a number of images from his main body of work in theatre and newspapers including behind the scenes images of Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
, Placido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
, Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
and Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt...
. The exhibition also toured to the Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
in Kings Cross and the BAC Gallery.
Other exhibitions include ‘Photo Call’, a collection of his work with the Observer newspaper, which toured the UK and then went to both Hyde Park in Sydney and the Festival of Perth in Australia. 2007 saw an exhibition of 'London Blues' - 101 photographs of London taken by Clark over a 40 year period - displayed at the National Theatre in London.
West End
- 'On the Waterfront' starring and directed by Steven Berkoff, 2009
- 'The Observer' with Anna Chancellor and directed by Richard Eyre, 2009
- ‘Epitaph for George Dillon’ with Joe Fiennes and directed by Peter Gill, 2005
- 'Betrayal' with Aden Gillett and directed by Sir Peter Hall, 2003
- ‘Tantalus’ directed by Peter Hall, Salford, 2001
- ‘Lenny’ with Eddie Izzard and directed by Peter Hall, 1999
- ‘M. Butterfly’ with Anthony Hopkins, 1989
- ‘A View from the Bridge’ with Michael Gambon and directed by Alan Ayckbourn, NT, 1987
- 'Romeo and Juliet' with Ian McKellen and directed by Trevor Nunn, RSC, 1976
Broadway
- 'Cyrano de Bergerac' with Derek Jacobi, RSC, 1984
- 'Much Ado About Nothing' with Derek Jacobi, RSC, 1984
- 'All's Well that Ends Well' directed by Trevor Nunn, RSC, 1983
- ‘American Buffalo’ with Al Pacino, 1983
Other productions
- 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' with Judi Dench and directed by Peter Hall, Kingston London, 2010
- 'The Stripper' The Queens Theatre, Hornchurch, UK 2009
- 'Bouncers' The Queens theatre, Hornchurch, UK 2006
- 'John Harle's Berlin Nights' concert with Albert Finney, Kate Westbrook, Phil Minton and the London Symphony Orchestra, 1989
He has also worked on many musicals including 'Cats
Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
' and 'Starlight Express
Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber , Richard Stilgoe and Arlene Phillips , with later revisions by Don Black and David Yazbek . The story follows a child's dream in which his toy train set comes to life; famously the actors perform wearing roller skates...
' by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
, ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’, the Cameron Mackintosh production of 'Oliver!
Oliver!
Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
' and 'Rent
Rent (musical)
Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...
' on Broadway.
TV and film stills photography
- 'Red Dwarf' with Craig Charles, 2005
- ‘Oliver Twist’ adapted by Diplomat Films, 1999
- ‘Jake’s Progress’ with Julie Walters and Robert Lindsay, adapted by Alan Bleasdale, 1995
- 'The Chain' with Nigel Hawthorne and Anna Massey, 1984