Peter Hall

Directing

Peter Hall

Born 1930-11-22 · Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England

Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE (22 November 1930 – 11 September 2017) was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognising achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director. In 1955, Hall introduced London audiences to the work of Samuel Beckett with the UK premiere of Waiting for Godot. Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (1960–68) and went on to build an international reputation in theatre, opera, film and television. He was director of the National Theatre (1973–88) and artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1984–1990). He formed the Peter Hall Company (1998–2011) and became founding director of the Rose Theatre Kingston in 2003. Throughout his career, he was a tenacious champion of public funding for the arts.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

La Traviata poster
7.5

Live from Glyndebourne 1987.

La Traviata

1987

No artwork available
5.0

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 2 June 1992.

Salomé

1992

Never Talk to Strangers poster
5.4

Sarah Taylor, a police psychologist, meets a mysterious and seductive young man, Tony Ramirez, and falls in love with him. As a cause of this relationship, she changes her personality when she begins to receive anonymous telephone calls.

Never Talk to Strangers

1995

Jacob poster
6.7

Isaac's son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.

Jacob

1994

Carmen - Glyndebourne Festival Opera poster
8.0

Don José is a guard who begins an affair with the tempestuous Carmen. He is imprisoned and loses his job, then flees with her to the mountains. When the relationship starts to break down José refuses to acknowledge it and will not leave, even when he gets news that his mother is dying. Carmen, meanwhile, has taken up with the bullfighter Escamillo. Bizet's most famous opera is brought to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera by Sir Peter Hall, with Maria Ewing and Barry McCauley heading an international cast.

Carmen - Glyndebourne Festival Opera

1985

Perfect Friday poster
6.2

The deputy manager of a London bank has worked out a way to rob the branch of £200,000. When he becomes involved with the attractive Lady Dorset he decides to go ahead with his plan. He needs her help and that of her philandering spendthrift husband. It all comes down to a matter of trust.

Perfect Friday

1970

Orpheus Descending poster
4.6

Val Xavier is a drifter in 1940's Mississippi who brings new life to an Italian immigrant woman trapped in a loveless marriage.

Orpheus Descending

1990

Orpheus Descending poster
4.6

Val Xavier is a drifter in 1940's Mississippi who brings new life to an Italian immigrant woman trapped in a loveless marriage.

Orpheus Descending

1990

Don Giovanni poster
7.0

Since its debut in 1934 the Glyndebourne Festival has put a focus on Mozart operas and developed a great competence in staging them. Mozart s operas seem to be made for the small but fine opera house in Glyndebourne and it's not surprising that the 1977 Don Giovanni, one of Mozart's great masterpieces, was a huge success. This production is conducted by Bernard Haitink, who holds the opinion, that no other composer had more opera in his blood than Mozart. It has been proven, for example, that Mozart had no overture for Don Giovanni until the evening before the premiere in Prague and wrote it down in just one night. Like the premiere's success of the opera in Prague in 1787 the Glyndebourne's version staged by Peter Hall was praised by audience and critics alike: We witness a lively and wide-awake ensemble piece that has easily survived all these decades, and still manages to teach many directors the art of playing theatre.

Don Giovanni

1977

A Midsummer Night's Dream poster
6.3

Peter Hall's film adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy, filmed in and around an English country house and starring actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

1968

Spin by David Shrigley poster
NR

Shrigley puts his personal spin on news stories and big events every day for a week by creating seven pieces of thought-provoking and entertaining artwork which offer an alternative, very personal interpretation on a topical news story. In the week-long public art project he expresses his idiosyncratic, wry humour in a variety of surprising media. Among his creations, there's been a cartoon on a building banner for Manchester about bullying, saying: "The bully has a brain the size of a pea"; a horde of people with sandwich boards about Tony Blair's current political issues which gathered outside the Guildhall in London, where the Prime Minister was making a speech; a giant mobile billboard parked at the Tory hustings in Leicester with the rallying cry "Legalise pottery"; and a giant wearing the slogan "Binge drinking is our heritage" visited bars in Nottingham.

Spin by David Shrigley

2005

The Homecoming poster
6.2

In a dreary North London flat, the site of perpetual psychological warfare, a philosophy professor visits his family after a nine-year absence and introduces the four men - father, uncle and two brothers - to his wife.

The Homecoming

1973

The Wars of the Roses poster
8.7

A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. It was based on the 1963 theatre adaptation by John Barton, and directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The Wars of the Roses

1965

She's Been Away poster
5.7

A woman who has been institutionalized for 60 years for the "crime" of not conforming to the 1920s image of what a proper young woman should be (in other words, she did what she wanted and didn't care what anyone else thought about it) is finally released to the custody of her family, consisting of her grand-nephew and his family. At first she keeps a self-imposed distance from the relatives, but she soon finds herself coming around to her nephew's wife, a free spirit who is under the thumb of her cold and controlling husband.

She's Been Away

1989

The Oresteia poster
10.0

Agamemnon returns home from the Trojan war and is murdered by his wife, setting off a chain of revenge that stretches across this trilogy of play. Directed by Peter Brook for the National Theatre, this is an all-male performance with masks.

The Oresteia

1983

Akenfield poster
7.6

As a young man, Tom, prepares to leave the Suffolk village of his birth, voices and experiences from his family's past crowd in on his mind, weaving a poetic tapestry of the love of home and the longing to get away from it.

Akenfield

1974

Akenfield poster
7.6

As a young man, Tom, prepares to leave the Suffolk village of his birth, voices and experiences from his family's past crowd in on his mind, weaving a poetic tapestry of the love of home and the longing to get away from it.

Akenfield

1974

The Final Passage poster
9.0

In 1958, a Caribbean couple make the journey to a new life by moving to England.

The Final Passage

1996

Monteverdi - L'Incoronazione Di Poppea poster
NR

This is a finely tuned opera with music by the Italian composer, Claudio Monteverdi, libretto by G. E. Busenello, and the fine voices of contralto Maria Ewing, baritone Dennis Bailey, and several other sub-leads is not to be missed and will be fully enjoyed. No lead tenor here and none needed. No soprano here as a lead and none needed. One of the joys of my watching and listening outside the opera hall. The story line is strong and the tale well carried out.

Monteverdi - L'Incoronazione Di Poppea

1984

3 Into 2 Won't Go poster
5.0

Steve Howard, a British sales executive living in Manchester, England, begins an affair with a young hitchhiker, Elle Patterson, to emotionally get away from his marriage to his wife Francis. But when Elle moves into a room in Steve and Francis's house, he must keep the true nature of his relationship with Elle under wraps at all costs.

3 Into 2 Won't Go

1969

Work Is a 4-Letter Word poster
6.0

Dreamlike satire about a young man who resists getting a job at the lone employing conglomerate in his dreary industrial town, but changes his mind when he discovers the plant's boiler room has the perfect climate to assist him with his pet horticultural (fungal) project.

Work Is a 4-Letter Word

1968

Seek poster
4.5

Two sisters have been driving all night when they come across a dilapidated roadside park and bathroom. Horrific events follow when one of them stumbles upon a strange message and a mischievous resident that wants to play a terrifying game.

Seek

2020

Albert Herring poster
7.0

Accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, composer Benjamin Britten's satirical look at life in an English market town delivers plenty of laughs. When Lady Billows (Patricia Johnson) realizes no girls in town are worthy of the May Queen title, she crowns virtuous Albert Herring (John Graham-Hall), the greengrocer's son, as the village's May King. The comic opera features a strong ensemble cast including Alan Opie and Felicity Palmer.

Albert Herring

1985

A Midsummer Night's Dream poster
7.3

The Glyndebourne Opera's 1981 production of the Benjamin Britten opera, based on Shakespeare's play.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

1981