For Matyelok Gibbs, who has died aged 91, 70 years in theatre and film were as much an adventure as a career. And children were at the heart of it, notably through her quarter of a century’s involvement with the Unicorn theatre in London, of which she was artistic director from 1973 to 1977.
Gibbs succeeded her mentor Caryl Jenner in the post having worked with that inspirational figure since the early 1950s. Jenner had launched the touring Mobile theatre for children in 1949, renaming it the Unicorn in 1962 and taking a lease on the Arts theatre club near Leicester Square tube station in 1967 as the Arts Council supplied its first, belated public funding.
