My friend Godfrey Evans, who has died aged 82, was a drama educationist who founded the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre Company for young people aged 13-21. Since its foundation in 1975, alumni have included Joanna Page, who played Stacey in the TV series Gavin and Stacey, the Dr Who screenwriter Russell T Davies and the actor Michael Sheen, who has appeared in films such as Damned United and The Queen.
Godfrey created the company in his role as chief adviser for drama and dance for the West Glamorgan area, a job that gave him responsibility for expanding opportunities for people in South Wales to become involved in the expressive arts. He was deeply committed to that mission, and many hundreds of actors, writers and designers have reason to be thankful for his work.
Born in Port Talbot to Harold and Myfanwy, he, attended Port Talbot secondary grammar school, where at 15 he was cast as Thomas Becket in a production of TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.
He then went to the Central School of Speech & Drama in London, where he was a favourite student of the renowned voice expert Cicely Berry. He was so well regarded, in fact, that he was approached to join the school’s voice department as a teacher shortly after he graduated.
However, he turned down the offer, preferring instead to return to Port Talbot to become, in 1963, a drama and dance teacher at Sandfields comprehensive school.
From there he was appointed by West Glamorgan county council as chief adviser for drama and dance in 1974, and aside from creating the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre the following year, he was also responsible for setting up related dance and youth arts companies.
He ran the theatre meticulously, choosing work that challenged students beyond what they knew they could do – setting the tone with early productions of The Winter’s Tale, The Bacchae, Peer Gynt, West Side Story and Hamlet. His reputation as a producer was such that he was asked to direct Mass, by Leonard Bernstein, at the newly opened Wembley Conference Centre in the International Year of the Child in 1979.
Godfrey retired when the youth arts provision for West Glamorgan was reorganised in 1992, though he continued to work with various organisations, including the Welsh College of Music and Drama and Gorseinon College. He was a visiting director to the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre Company until the last 18 months of his life.
In his private life Godfrey had an eclectic palette: trips to Royal Shakespeare Company productions in Stratford-upon-Avon were offset with annual visits to Hay-on-Wye’s literature festival, and he also combined an enjoyment of opera with a passion for the music of the Pet Shop Boys.
A man of deep Christian faith, he loved nothing more that pottering around his garden with his cat, Bramble, or lazy Sundays spent with his goddaughters, Alyson and Becca, and their families.
