André Ptaszynski

André Ptaszynski was a leading figure in British theatre over the past 40 years who brought a fresh, contemporary approach to staging musicals, helped steer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful companies through a decade of change and championed the careers of star comedians.

He was also an innovative president of the Society of London Theatre from 1996 to 1999, broadening the Theatre Tokens scheme, restructuring the Olivier awards and campaigning for greater theatre coverage on television.

News of his death prompted a wave of tributes, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Gregory Doran recalling “His irrepressible charm, humour, laser instinct and clear-sighted business sense [that] made him one the most successful and admired producers of recent times”.

The National Theatre remarked: “At a time when theatre is in great peril, it has lost one of its greatest champions.”

Ptaszynski was born in Ipswich to Anglo-Polish parents. His father was a Polish pilot who fled to England after being released as a Soviet prisoner and his mother a local businesswoman.

He read English at the University of Oxford, where his interest in theatre began. An active member of OUDS, he took control of the student Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, showing early entrepreneurial flair by mounting six-month tours of British and American universities in 1977-78.

Returning to the UK, where he had spent time with Peter Cheeseman at Stoke’s Victoria Theatre in 1975, he joined Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre under Peter James as a production manager and subsequently associate director at the end of the decade.

Early successes included Griff Rhys Jones in Charley’s Aunt and Larry Shue’s The Nerd, starring Rowan Atkinson

In 1981, together with Peter Bennett-Jones (who was to become a lifelong friend), he formed Pola Jones Associates and went on to produce more than 40 major shows. Early successes included Griff Rhys Jones in Charley’s Aunt at the Aldwych Theatre (1983), Dario Fo’s Trumpets and Raspberries, which transferred from the Watford Palace to the West End’s Phoenix Theatre, and Larry Shue’s The Nerd, starring Rowan Atkinson at the Aldwych in 1984.

Ptaszynski went on to enjoy long and fruitful partnerships with both Atkinson and Rhys Jones while also promoting other rising stars of the alternative comedy scene including Rik Mayall, Rory Bremner, Eddie Izzard and Mel Smith. He produced The Gambler, starring Smith and co-written by Bob Goody and Peter Brewis, at the Comedy Theatre in 1986.

He also worked with established mainstream comics such as Dave Allen and Victoria Wood, whose Up West show he brought into the Strand Theatre in 1990.

He earned his first Olivier for Bob Carlton’s rock’n’roll jukebox musical Return to the Forbidden Planet at the Cambridge Theatre in 1989, which caused a minor sensation when it beat firm favourite Miss Saigon to lift the best new musical award. He revived it with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995.

Ptaszynski would go on to win six other Oliviers with Pola Jones, including for the 1997 revival of Chicago which achieved then record ticket sales of £3 million in its first four days at the Adelphi Theatre.

In 1998 he revived West Side Story at the Prince Edward Theatre. The following year, Spend, Spend, Spend – Steve Brown and Justin Greene’s rags to riches story of football pools winner Viv Nicholson, at the Piccadilly Theatre – picked up the Evening Standard award for best musical.