Gillian Lynne

The great choreographer and director Gillian Lynne tells Lynn Wallis how it was a giant, but ultimately rewarding step, to leave the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1951. We have a ten minute trip from the bright lights of the London Palladium to the “fiendishly difficult” score of [Michael] Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage at the Royal Opera House in 1968. Although this is the slimmest of glimpses of Gillian Lynne’s long and extraordinary career as a dancer and choreographer, it is impossible not to feel riveted by the energy in her voice. Theatre is in her very bones.The episode is introduced by Adam Cooper, in conversation with Natalie Steed.Gillian Lynne was born in Bromley, Kent in 1926. She showed an early talent for dancing, and while at school she formed a friendship with Beryl Groom, who was to become Beryl Grey, and also to have a distinguished career in ballet and dance. When her mother died in a car accident when Gillian was 13, she threw herself into dance, partly in order to cope with the tragedy.In 1944, while Gillian Lynne was dancing with Molly Lake’s company at the People’s Palace, Ninette de Valois noticed her talent and invited her to join the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. In the seven years she was there, she became admired as a fine dramatic ballerina. She was particularly noted for her performances as the Black Queen in de Valois’ Checkmate, the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty and as the Queen of the Wilis in Giselle.Gillian Lynne left the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1951, and began her successful career in the commercial theatre by appearing in balletic pas de deux in variety shows at the London Palladium. She then appeared as the star dancer in other West End productions, such as Can Can (in which she was Claudine). She also began to work in television and films, including acting in The Master of Ballantrae, opposite Errol Flynn.It is perhaps as a director and choreographer that Gillian Lynne is best known, where her list of credits is immense. She worked at the Royal Opera House, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, English National Opera, Northern Ballet and the Australian Ballet, as well directing over 60 productions in the West End and on Broadway. As producer, director, choreographer or performer she worked on 11 feature films and hundreds of television productions, where her work included The Muppet Show and A Simple Man, for which she won a BAFTA for her direction and choreography in 1987. Internationally and in the popular mind, she is perhaps most famous for her choreography for the musicals Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love.Gillian Lynne won numerous awards for her work, including the Olivier Award in 1981 for the Outstanding Achievement of the Year in Musicals for Cats, The Royal Academy of Dance’s Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in 2001 and a Special Award at the 2013 Olivier Awards. She was a Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dance. In 2018 the New London Theatre was renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre in her honour. She was appointed CBE in 1997 and DBE in 2014 for services to dance and musical theatre. Gillian Lynne died in 2108.Episode photo: Gillian Lynne as the Black Queen in Ninette de Valois’ 1937 ballet, Checkmate, a role she danced over a dozen times between 1950 and 1951. This is a studio portrait, June 23, 1950Music by Arthur Bliss, choreograpy by Ninette de Valois, designs by Edward McKnight Kauffer.  Photo by Roger Wood (c) Royal Opera House / ArenaPAL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.