The end of another critical era…

News reached me earlier this evening as I was en route to the theatre of the sudden passing of Sheridan Morley, who has been a part of my entire theatregoing life – first as an avid reader of his books, interview profiles and reviews, and latterly a colleague on the aisle (where he until the end of last year held the post of theatre critic on the Daily Express, sister paper to my own critical perch on the Sunday Express).

During a long and distinguished journalistic career, he has had regular perches at publications as varied as the late Punch magazine, the International Herald Tribune, The Spectator, the New Statesman, The Lady and the Daily Express, doing what we all do, being a jobbing journalist whose job happens to be reporting on the theatre.

But Sheridan, more than most of us, was also a quintessential man of the theatre, not just by birth (as son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of Gladys Cooper), but in the expansiveness of his encyclopaedic knowledge of it and the rich, resonant tones of the voice with which he would hold forth about it, whether on the radio or in person at first nights. He also had more hands-on – and stage-on – experience of the theatre than any other critic, regularly pressed into service as a narrator of one show or another, and directing as well.

Though he has suffered a few health setbacks over the last few years, he has kept bouncing back and we thought he was indestructible. Though the final chapter of his life saw him committing to spend more time in New York where he and his wife, Ruth Leon, also keep a home, he was back in London at the time of his death, and we saw him at first nights just this week on both Monday (at Underneath the Lintel) and Tuesday (at The Glass Menagerie). It’s difficult to believe he won’t be at any more. My condolences are extended to Ruth (who has been a pillar of strength and loyalty to him as he overcame earlier illnesses) and the rest of his family.