Pam Brighton (1946-2015) grew up in a working class Yorkshire home and studied at the LSE in the 1960s. She ran the Royal Court Young People’s Theatre in the early 1970s, directing a controversial production of Ann Jellicoe’s The Sport of My Mad Mother, among others, before becoming involved with the Half Moon Theatre in Alie St, E1, where her second husband, Guy Sprung, was a co-founder. She appeared as an actor in major parts in Ken Loach’s series of films Days of Hope in 1975 and after a period working in Canada and became director of Hull Truck in 1981. She went on to qualify in law before moving to Belfast in 1983 to direct Lay Up Your Ends, Charabanc’s first production, staying to direct several more including Marie Jones’s A Night in November and Women on the Verge of HRT, while also working for BBC Radio Drama. In 1991 she co-founded the cross-border company Dubbeljoint – working in both Dublin and Belfast in a challenge to sectarianism. For full obituary see Michael Coveney in The Guardian but if you have particular memories you would like to contribute, please email us and we will add them to this page.
Mary Sheen sent us this: ‘I worked with Pam Brighton as an actor in the 70’s at the Old Half Moon Theatre in London and in its very first productions with Guy Sprung who became her second husband and whom she met there. We had good times performing political protest shows such as George Davis is Innocent OK and community shows such as The Hammers, a play with music about West Ham Football Club. I loved her great sense of humour, admired her incredible intellect and enjoyed her brave and unconventional direction, always trying to create vibrant, entertaining and relevant theatre. She was a committed socialist and a worthy successor to Joan Littlewood.’