David Chadderton, editor of British Theatre Guide, reflects on the life and career of his colleague and fellow Critics’ Circle Drama Section member, Howard Loxton, who died on 22 June, at the age of 92.
Howard Loxton, theatre critic and Drama Section member
Howard was, in his own words, “born a Brummie” in 1934. He had a long and varied career that included founding television quarterly Viewpoint, contributing to The Guardian and doing showbiz interviews for other journals with creatives ranging from pop stars to famed American choreographer Agnes De Mille. He moved into book-publishing as an editor with Paul Hamlyn, Jonathan Cape and William Collins and wrote nearly 50 books on a wide variety of subjects, from history to natural history. Wikipedia lists 15 books written by him on cats alone (the animals, not the musical).
Theatre, however, was always part of his life. His earliest theatrical memory was of a pantomime around 1941, followed, at the age of ten, by watching Peter Brook’s production of King John. Later, he would regularly cycle 20 miles to Stratford-upon-Avon for (the now called) Royal Shakespeare Company matinées. He went to theatre school, thanks to a Birmingham Council grant, before beginning his acting career at the Garrick Theatre, Lichfield, then joining the company at Birmingham Rep and later turning to stage management, which included two seasons with the English Opera Group.
He joined British Theatre Guide (BTG) as a reviewer in 2007 from the now-defunct Rogues and Vagabonds website and quickly became one of its most prolific reviewers, with nearly 3,000 reviews on the site, plus news articles and features. Indeed, up until this March, he was still reviewing several London productions each week. At the same time, he was an active member of the Society for Theatre Research committee, chairing the judges’ panel for the annual Theatre Book Prize until last year.
Although we were BTG colleagues for many years, other Critics’ Circle members will have met him in person much more than me, as we were operating at opposite corners of the UK. But, of course, we corresponded from time to time and, while editing his writing, I was often amazed by the little nuggets from his vast knowledge and experience in theatre that he would sometimes inject into his reviews.
There are examples I sometimes quote to my students. He opened his review of the Almeida Theatre’s 2024 revival of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger with: “coming out from the original production of Look Back, I apparently said something like, ‘that said it,’ though now I have no idea what I meant.” In his review of the King’s Head Theatre’s Turning the Screw in the same year – which was about the creation of Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw in 1953 – he was able to note: “as it happens, I worked with the English Opera Group on this production…” Not many of us writing about theatre can draw on such personal insight going back more than 70 years.
Howard will be greatly missed by his BTG colleagues and by many in the London theatre scene. But he has left a wonderful legacy in the BTG archives and elsewhere.