Frank Dunlop, who has died aged 98, never got the credit he deserved during his lifetime. He was a populist pioneer and genuine visionary who created London’s Young Vic theatre from scratch, radically changed the nature of the Edinburgh festival and, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, tried to introduce institutional permanence to New York theatre. He was also a figure of bustling energy. Even in his 90s, when I would see him on his annual return to Edinburgh, he would be talking about future projects. In fact, he reminded me of a line from a great Latin poet: “Leisure, Catullus, does not agree with you.”
The Young Vic is his enduring legacy but one forgets what an extraordinary achievement it was in 1970. It was a breeze block building created in nine months out of a former butcher’s shop, and was inspired by Dunlop’s memories of the postwar dream of a theatre centre operating under the auspices of the Old Vic. Dunlop’s Young Vic had a similar relation to Olivier’s National Theatre parent company, but it soon established its own identity. Offering lively productions to young audiences at affordable prices, it mixed classics by Shakespeare and Molière with the best of Beckett, Ionesco and Genet.
