Michael Croft

John Michael Croft (8 March 1922 – 15 November 1986) was an English actor, schoolteacher, and writer. Based upon his own experience of supply teaching in tough secondary schools, he wrote the controversial 1954 anti-corporal punishment novel Spare the Rod, which was later released as a film. He founded the National Youth Theatre in 1956 with Kenneth Spring. Since 2017, former students of the National Youth Theatre have come forward with allegations of historic abuse against Croft.

Early life Croft was born in Hengoed, Shropshire (near Oswestry). His mother, Constance Croft, was unmarried, and at an early age he and an older sister went to be fostered by an aunt in Manchester. Croft attended Plymouth Grove Elementary School, and later obtained a place at the Burnage Grammar School, where he would remain from 1933 to 1940. While at Burnage, he developed a love of poetry which was to last all his life, but the fondness for classical music which took him fairly often to concerts by The Hallé orchestra was not to last to a similar extent. His ambitions at that time were either to become a writer or to play cricket for Lancashire County Cricket Club.

Career

Wartime World War II ended any chance of a career in cricket, and Croft joined the RAF in 1940, becoming a sergeant-pilot. Despite taking part in daylight bombing raids over occupied France, however, he apparently lacked the manual dexterity demanded in flying, and he was offered the option of a discharge. There followed a period in which he tried various casual jobs – as a repertory actor in Lancashire, an ARP fire guard messenger, a credit salesman and even a lumberjack – but he returned to the services in 1943, this time with the Royal Navy. He spent some time on Mediterranean convoys and was a radar operator by the time the war ended in 1945.

University In 1946, Croft, along with many other ex-servicemen, obtained a grant to take a short-course university degree. His was at Keble College, Oxford. Because of the backlog caused by the war it was a remarkably talented and relatively mature intake at university, and he counted among his friends there were Kenneth Tynan, Chris Chataway, Lindsay Anderson, Ludovic Kennedy, Robin Day and John Schlesinger. He read English but, as he put it, he did not do much reading, and graduated with a modest BA Honours degree (3rd class). It nevertheless gave him the opportunity to indulge his love of literature, theatre, writing and sport.

Teaching Following his graduation, Croft did occasional work in journalism, broadcasting, and acting, but worked mainly as a private tutor and a supply teacher He spent most of 1950 doing teacher training at a secondary school in North Oxford.

The years immediately following Henry V saw other productions of Shakespeare, such as Troilus and Cressida (at the Edinburgh Festival), Hamlet (in London and on tour), and Antony and Cleopatra (at the Old Vic). Pupils from more and more other schools, including girls, were now included, however, and modern plays (such as those specially written for them by Peter Terson including Zigger Zagger and, later, Barrie Keeffe) became a regular feature.

Despite Croft's reputation as an internationally respected director,

Death Croft would not live long enough to see the National Youth Theatre saved by a commercial sponsorship deal in 1987. He died of a heart attack at the age of 64, alone at his home in Kentish Town, London, on 15 November 1986.

Abuse allegations In 2017, the National Youth Theatre released a statement acknowledging that they had received complaints in 2013 and 2016 alleging that Croft had committed “serious offences”. In 2025, the Labour MP Chris Bryant said that he had been sexually abused by Croft when he attended the National Youth Theatre in London at the age of 16. He said at least one other boy during his time at the National Youth Theatre was also abused by Croft.

Legacy Today's National Youth Theatre puts on around six productions a year and has "more than 3,500 members from around the UK and from all backgrounds, faiths and communities". There is hardly a play at the National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company, or a British film or television series that does not contain someone whom he has influenced, directly or indirectly.

As David Weston put it, Croft "enjoyed an increasingly expansive lifestyle, which he shared generously with his vast circle of friends and acquaintances. He had a great appetite for life, food and drink. He has been described as a Falstaff with a thousand Prince Hals. It is tragic that a man who could inspire such devotion and friendship should die alone on a Saturday night in 1986." An instruction in his will nevertheless provided a party for hundreds of his friends, "at which the food shall be wholesome and the drink shall not be allowed to run out". In a similar vein, the luxury item which he had selected for his Desert Island had been a whisky still.