Toby Robertson

Sholto David Maurice Robertson (29 November 1928 – 4 July 2012), known as Toby Robertson, was the artistic director of the Prospect Theatre Company from 1964 to 1978. He was recognized as having "re-established the good name and reputation of touring theatre in the UK after it had become a byword for second-rate tattiness in the 1950s".

Early life The son of David Lambert Robertson, a naval officer, and his wife, Felicity Douglas, a playwright, Robertson was educated at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, and Trinity College, Cambridge. Christened Sholto, he became known as "Toby" (he claimed, as a result of reciting "To be, or not to be" from an early age). He did his national service with the East African Rifles.

Prospect pioneered a type of theatre production in which emphasis was placed on quality acting and strikingly designed costumes, while its minimal stage designs enabled the company to easily tour regional theatres. Both those productions subsequently toured Britain and Europe before being staged at the Mermaid Theatre in London and breaking box-office records at the Piccadilly Theatre. a production which when revived in 1979 toured Denmark, Australia and the first-ever Western theatrical tour of China. Other actors whose careers were effectively launched or enhanced by Prospect included Prunella Scales, Dorothy Tutin and Timothy West, and the company mounted critically acclaimed productions of plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Dryden, Gogol and John Vanbrugh, as well as Cottrell's adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View. An internal report by Prospect then questioned "whether Prospect can any longer satisfy the triple task of filling the Vic, of satisfying the [Arts Council] Director of Touring's requirements for product of a certain familiar sort, and of realizing the vision of Toby Robertson". As a result, Robertson was in effect fired from the post of artistic director in 1980 while he was abroad with the company in China. His friendship with Timothy West, his successor as artistic director at the Old Vic, was irreparably soured.

Theatr Clwyd Robertson subsequently ran Theatr Clwyd in north Wales between 1985 and 1992. He persuaded several leading actors, including Vanessa Redgrave, Sir Michael Hordern and Timothy Dalton, to perform at the theatre.

Opera direction Robertson directed several opera productions. For Scottish Opera he directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1972), the 1975 world premiere of Robin Orr’s Hermiston, and Marriage of Figaro (1977).