Sad news. I’ve just learned that the mighty Paul Elliott — theatre producer extraordinaire — has died…
Sad news. I’ve just learned that the mighty Paul Elliott — theatre producer extraordinaire — has died.
Paul produced pantomimes across the UK when I first met him in 1979, but he also belonged to a now-diminishing tribe: the impresario. Instinctive. Theatrical. Unafraid of a bit of danger. A man who understood that mischief, when properly aimed, isn’t a flaw — it’s a gift. An idea increasingly exotic in an industry now fond of mistaking caution for virtue.
I was very young and wildly ambitious at the Wyvern Theatre when we staged his shows. I pulled a small publicity scam involving a vent prop for Goldilocks (don’t ask) — the sort of idea that looks reckless on paper and irresistible in the flesh. Paul spotted it instantly. I braced myself. Instead, he smiled. Not indulgently — knowingly. Then he gently nudged me towards the beating heart of the West End. That encouragement kick-started something precious. It’s what sent me to London.
Paul thought he might get me a job and introduced me to the late, great Theo Cowan. Theo didn’t give me a break. He took one look at the restless energy and pushed me toward Stratford East. At the time, it felt brutal. With hindsight, it was kindness, just not the kind now offered by HR wellness webinars.
Years later, I repped one or two of Paul’s West End shows as a freelance publicist. He indulged my madcap idea to hire Douglas Fairbanks, old school Hollywood royalty, to relaunch The Pirates of Penzance at the Palladium. It cost Paul a Concorde ticket and a weekend at Claridge’s. Fairbanks adored him. Fairbanks teaching Paul Nicholas how to sword-fight was a publicity gift. The stunt landed. Proper showbusiness: joyful, ridiculous, opportunistic the sort now subjected to a risk assessment and quietly euthanised. Fairbanks called me a “stuntster”. I dined out on that for years.
Paul and I stayed friends for over forty years. That’s the line that’s hardest to write.
Yes, Paul was a major force, over sixty West End shows, hundreds of pantomimes, six decades shaping the modern commercial theatre landscape in Britain and beyond. All of that is true. All of that matters. It will, of course, be reduced to a paragraph and a bar chart somewhere.
But so does how he worked.
Before artifice was reduced to follower counts and connection became frictionless but thin, Paul operated by eye, ear and instinct. He believed theatre should have a pulse and that producers existed to make things happen, not convene endless meetings about whether making things happen might be “on brand”. Proper impresarios like Paul are quietly exiting stage right, replaced by safer hands and louder decks.
What they leave behind isn’t just a body of work, but a way of doing things human, witty, alert to possibility. A method that doesn’t shout, but knows.
The world feels a little smaller without him. And a little less wise.
I was lucky to have crossed his path when I did. And I’m deeply sad knowing fewer will.
