My friend Warren Lakin, who has died of a respiratory tract infection aged 71, for many years promoted live shows and tours by comedians, singers, poets and public speakers, latterly with Lakin McCarthy Productions, the company he ran with Mike McCarthy. Among the performers he worked with were Barry Cryer, Susan Calman, Andy Hamilton, Robin Ince, Ruby Wax, Jon Ronson and – most notably – his partner Linda Smith.
Warren met Linda in the early 1980s when they were founder members of the leftwing Sheffield Popular Theatre, which, as well as producing plays, also staged the cabaret nights in which Linda performed her first standup routines.
Warren was with Linda throughout her comedy career and her time as a Radio 4 stalwart. After her death in 2006, he curated her legacy with the same kind of energy that made him such a successful promoter. He wrote an excellent biography, Driving Miss Smith (2007), and produced CDs and a book collecting her comedy material, and organised a series of joyful tribute shows raising money for Target Ovarian Cancer.
He also donated her personal archive to the University of Kent – where I work – and this inspired us to establish the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, which collects material relating to the recent history of UK standup. Since 2015, Warren and I ran the annual Linda Smith Lecture at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury, the speakers including Mark Thomas, Jo Brand and Bridget Christie.
The son of Sheila (nee Felton), a secretary, and Leslie Lakin, a bookkeeper, Warren was born to a Jewish family in Hackney, London, but grew up in the Southend area and, after leaving Westcliff High School for Boys, had an early career as a journalist with the East London and Essex newspaper group. Always politically active, he became an NUJ shop steward at the age of 20. He also began promoting shows by bands and theatre groups, and in the late 1970s he changed career to join the theatre company Cast. He worked on their New Variety shows in a circuit of venues around London that played a key role in the growth of the 1980s alternative comedy circuit.
In 1983 he moved to Sheffield to study at the city’s university, but after meeting Linda, he ditched the degree in favour of Sheffield Popular Theatre and his work as a promoter. Ten years later they returned to live in London, where in 2008 Warren co-founded Lakin McCarthy.
As a promoter, Warren had the drive to make things happen while remaining one of the nicest people in showbusiness. He was unusually warm and unstoppably chatty. Phone conversations with him were epic affairs, typically lasting well over an hour and covering comedy, jazz, politics, Jewish culture, cricket, Arsenal FC and pretty much any topic in between.
He is survived by his partner Debra Reay, and his brother, Tony, and sister, Tina.
