Stephen Wood, who has died aged 73 after a stroke, was a press officer, administrator and former stage manager who worked closely with Alan Ayckbourn at Scarborough. He was at the National Theatre press office, of which he eventually became head, from 1982 to 1996, returning to Scarborough to become, until his retirement in 2016, executive director of the Stephen Joseph theatre in the reconstructed Odeon cinema.
Critics and publicists enjoy an odd relationship: a professional dependence is often shadowed by a personal wariness. But I got to know Stephen well, partly through a shared passion for cricket and partly because we had friends in common. I was struck by his steadfast loyalty to the people and institutions with whom he worked, but also by his straightforwardness and honesty.
Born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, to Joan (nee Pollard), a teacher, and Thomas Wood, Stephen had a peripatetic childhood, as his father was a cleric who eventually became a professor of theology at a college in Lampeter, Ceredigion. But Stephen was mainly educated at Rossall school in Fleetwood, Lancashire, where he shone at sport, including cross-country and rugby. In 1969-70 he did a stage management course at Rada, went on to be a stage manager at Lincoln Theatre Royal, and changed courses to become a press officer at the Library Theatre Manchester before joining Ayckbourn at the original Theatre in the Round at Scarborough in 1976.
