Tony Banfield obituary

Tony Banfield’s greatest gift was for friendship, offered instantly and usually with a joke, but sustained for life. U

You have to warm to a theatre publicist who, having cut out six very large letters to spell HAMLET on the front of the building, realises they could just as easily spell THELMA, and arranges them accordingly on his office floor just as the critic of the Times is being ushered into his office to phone in a review to a copytaker.

Tony Banfield, who has died of cancer aged 64, was an immensely gifted publicist, especially in creating visual impact. In the late 60s, 70s and 80s he worked at the Library theatre in Manchester, the Sheffield Crucible and at the Stephen Joseph theatre in Scarborough.

Tony had any number of gifts, and when theatre publicity became too driven for his taste, he switched to making stained glass. I have a lampshade made for my wife's birthday that contains as many signifiers as a renaissance painting.

He was, essentially, an unreconstructed 60s hippy: happy to work, but easily fed up by jobs which generated the anxiety he usually kept well-hidden. When his stained glass became more of a successful business, and less of a pleasing creative activity, he turned his back on it. His last occupation, for which he also proved immensely gifted, was as a part-time carer.

His greatest gift was for friendship, offered instantly and usually with a joke, but sustained for life. His younger brother Chris recalls him introducing himself to complete strangers with the question: "Can you name three fish beginning and ending with k?" The answers were killer shark, Kwik-Save frozen haddock and Kilmarnock. When this provoked the objection that it wasn't a fish, he replied: "Yes, it is. It's a small pla(i)ce in Scotland."

The friends he made in Scarborough more than 30 years ago included the actor-director Malcolm Hebden (Norris in Coronation Street) and the production manager-turned-writer David Millard, who says Tony was "utterly dependable, always entertaining and had an unrivalled knowledge of trivia – my 'phone a friend' for real life".

Tony was adopted and brought up in Knutsford, Cheshire. He was educated at Manchester grammar school and at commercial college and art school in Liverpool. He is survived by his partner and anchor of 33 years, Val Maddison.