{"id":370283,"date":"2025-08-24T17:43:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T17:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/370283\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T17:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T17:43:15","slug":"actor-and-citizens-theatre-director-giles-havergal-dies-aged-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/370283\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor and Citizens Theatre director Giles Havergal dies aged 87"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CitizensCitizens Theatre<\/p>\n

Giles Havergal died on the same day as the reopening of the Citizens Theatre, where he was artistic director<\/p>\n

The actor and former artistic director of the Citizens Theatre Giles Havergal has died aged 87.<\/p>\n

Mr Havergal presided over the Glasgow venue from 1969 to 2003 – described as one of the most celebrated periods in the theatre’s history.<\/p>\n

He died on Saturday, the same day the Citizens reopened following a seven-year closure.<\/p>\n

The theatre, in the city’s Gorbals area, closed in June 2018 for a refurbishment which was planned to take three years.<\/p>\n

Mr Havergal’s productions included an all-male Hamlet starring David Hayman.<\/p>\n

He was responsible for bringing Glenda Jackson, Pierce Brosnan and Rupert Everett to the stage in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Staff said that he, alongside his co-directors Robert David MacDonald and Philip Prowse, ensured the venue became a “European creative powerhouse”.<\/p>\n

The theatre’s current artistic director Dominic Hill said he recently spoke with Mr Havergal, who told him he was looking forward to the venue’s first show Small Acts of Love.<\/p>\n

The production is about the town of Lockerbie’s response to the Pan Am disaster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having first visited the Citizens in 1953, Mr Havergal said it would be the “next step in a long journey for me”.<\/p>\n

Mr Hill said: “He\u202falways took great interest in how the theatre was faring and the work we were presenting, even after leaving Glasgow. <\/p>\n

“I hugely enjoyed our chats over dinner and lapped up his stories as well as his immense wisdom and knowledge. <\/p>\n

“I am sorry that he will never see the newly restored theatre but his legacy is hard-wired into the fabric of the building and his name will always be associated with it.”<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Liddell<\/p>\n

The theatre closed in 2018 for a refurbishment which was originally planned to take three years<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Six statues have been returned to the roof of the building<\/p>\n

\"EoinEoin Carey<\/p>\n

The theatre’s historic auditorium has been maintained<\/p>\n

A community-led parade marked the reopening of the Citizens, a landmark in the Gorbals area since 1945.<\/p>\n

The building itself – which is leased from Glasgow City Council – dates back to 1878 and has one of the oldest surviving auditoriums in the UK, with Victorian stage equipment.<\/p>\n

The auditorium has been maintained, as have the theatre’s six statues – which sat atop the roof and were a fixture of the city’s skyline for a century.<\/p>\n

They are of the four Greek muses as well as William Shakespeare and Robert Burns.<\/p>\n

The original cost of the revamp was estimated at \u00a320m but it could end up costing almost double that amount.<\/p>\n

\"Byline<\/p>\n

Mark Rylance was just one of the actors given their first break by Giles Havergal, who was artistic director of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow for more than three decades.<\/p>\n

When he was appointed in 1969, the Gorbals theatre was in a bit of a mess with previous directors clashing with a conservative board. <\/p>\n

But Havergal, along with fellow directors Robert David MacDonald and Philip Prowse, refused to play it safe. <\/p>\n

Their debut show was an all-male Hamlet, with both cast and play stripped back to basics. <\/p>\n

The critics hated it but audiences flocked to the theatre, especially when they introduced cut price tickets for those who could least afford it.<\/p>\n

He left Scotland \u2013 and the theatre \u2013 in 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Citizens Theatre Giles Havergal died on the same day as the reopening of the Citizens Theatre, where he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-370283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}