My friend Roger Chapman, who has died aged 77 from heart failure, was a director and producer who made a huge impact on international theatre touring. In the 1980s, while based in Australia, Roger was one of the first to take work into and out of China. From 1988 until 2004, he was the National Theatre’s touring director, working under Richard Eyre and Trevor Nunn, and taking the very best of British theatre to the regions and around the globe.
Roger was born in Hull, east Yorkshire, the only son of Elsie (nee Thompson) and Arthur Chapman, an ambulance driver. From Mallet Lambert school, Hull, he went on to study drama at the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, London.
