Ewan Hooper

A dedicated man of the theatre, actor, director and writer Ewan Hooper enjoyed a varied 60-year career that encompassed classical drama, comedy, TV, film, writing anddirecting plays, as well as inaugurating and running theatre companies.

After graduating from RADA in 1957, the popular Scottish-born actor made his professional debut in a walk-on role in Peter Brook’s production of Titus
Andronicus at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre, Paris, in 1957, later repeating his performance in the West End.

He played a variety of roles in four seasons with the Bristol Old Vic, from 1959-62, including Napoleon in War and Peace, which transferred to London’s Old Vic. 
In the late 1960s Hooper set about saving the Greenwich Theatre from demolition, raising money for its redevelopment and creating a new musical, Martin Luther King, for its reopening in 1969. He was also involved in establishing the Greenwich Young People’s Theatre.

A decade later, Hooper became the founder-director of the Glasgow-based Scottish Theatre Company, which aimed to commission Scottish writers and present international classics. It lasted eight years until the then Scottish Arts Council withdrew funding.

As Stan Mann in a revival of Arnold Wesker’s Roots, directed by Simon Curtis, he made his National Theatre debut in 1988, returning to Bristol Old Vic in 1992 to play Prospero in The Tempest. From 1993 to 1995 he played three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, his roles including Junius Brutus in Coriolanus; Amyclas in The Broken Heart; and the titular Davies in Pinter’s The Caretaker.

Later in the 1990s, he played a succession of roles at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, including Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing (for which he won a Manchester Evening News award); Jeffcote in Hindle Wakes; and Mr Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer.

Hooper returned to the West End in a revival of David Storey’s The Changing Room in 1996, and in 2001 he stood out as Roche, the tormented tramp, in Rufus Norris’ revival of Afore Night Come at the Young Vic. In 2004 he returned to the National for David Hare’s Stuff Happens, about the lead-up to the Anglo-US invasion of Iraq, directed by Nicholas Hytner.

Fans of the 1980s sitcom Hi-de-Hi! will remember Hooper as Alec Foster, and his films included How I Won the War (1967), Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968), Personal Services (1987) and Kinky Boots (2005). 

Ewan Hooper was born on October 23, 1935, and died on April 6, aged 87.