Theatre director and playwright who became a campaigner for disabled people
In the 1970s and early 80s, Paddy Masefield, who has died of cancer aged 69, was one of Britain's most prolific playwrights, creating 30 performed works in 15 years. He also directed 75 stage productions, founded four theatre companies and ran Oldham Rep and the Swan theatre, Worcester. His consultancy reports included arts development strategies for St Helens, Lincoln and Peterborough, and he was described by Michael Billington in 1984 as the "doyen of arts consultants".
In 1986, aged 44, Paddy acquired a severe form of ME. He spent two years re-learning how to speak and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This led to a new career as a campaigner for disabled people in the arts. In a lecture in 1999, Lord Puttnam described Paddy's persuasive powers on the Arts Council lottery panel, and his absolute refusal to compromise over the question of paying to make buildings accessible for disabled people: "Paddy made all of us realise that the only way of achieving meaningful and sustainable change was to accept these as absolutely fundamental and enduring issues." As a result, all of the buildings which have received funding from the panel, from Tate Modern to village halls used for brass-band practice, are fully accessible.
Born in Kampala, Uganda, Paddy arrived in Britain in 1945 and attended Repton school, in Derbyshire. He spent a year teaching in Africa, then studied social anthropology at Fitzwilliam House (now Fitzwilliam College), Cambridge, where he directed an early work by Wole Soyinka, with one of the first all-black casts in England.
In 1967, he became drama, film and literature officer for the North-East Arts Association. He felt that it was important to take theatre to young people and communities who might otherwise not experience it and so, in 1969, founded Stagecoach Young People's Theatre, which toured nationally and was the subject of a Tyne Tees Television documentary. That year, he wrote his first play, Blow the Whistle. He won the Welsh national dramatists award in 1970 for Play with Fire, co-written for Stagecoach with Peter Hawkins. One of his last dramatic works was the 1985 Worcester community play Woodbine Willie, with a cast of 200.
Paddy argued the case for disabled people at the British Film Institute, Central Television, West Midlands Arts, the National Disability Arts Forum, Foundation for Community Dance and the Culture Committee of the UK National Commission for Unesco. In 1999 he set up the Sue Napolitano award, a £10,000 commission for disabled writers, which funded the writing of Lois Keith's novel Out of Place.
Paddy was vice-chair of the ME Association and, from 1994 to 1998, chair of the Arts Council of England's initiative to increase the employment of disabled people in the arts, which created an apprenticeship programme placing disabled people in mainstream companies such as the RSC and English National Opera, the hope being that their presence would affect the working cultures of those organisations.
Paddy was appointed the first honorary life member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain and, in 1996, was appointed OBE for services to the arts.
In 2002 he was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live. It was at this time that I recorded his life history, on which I based the transcription poems Paddy: A Life, which can be read on Disability Arts Online. Colleagues created the Paddy Masefield award "for outstanding communication through art by a disabled person".
In 2006 he wrote Strength: Broadsides from Disability on the Arts, based largely on his past speeches. Typically, the book is crammed with photos and references to the work of other disability artists, whom he was always keen to promote.
He is survived by his wife, Caroline, whom he married in 2002; his daughter, Abigail, from his marriage to Andrea Duncan (later Wonfor); and three grandchildren, Ami, Amba and Amaaya.
• Patrick William Bussell Masefield, theatre director, playwright and campaigner, born 17 September 1942; died 13 July 2012
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/24/paddy-masefield-obituary
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