Theatre of the United Kingdom rise of satire in 1960s Britain. The Chichester Festival Theatre was Britain's first modern thrust stage theatre. It was inspired by the Festival Theatre of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival launched by Tyrone Guthrie in the Canadian city of Stratford, Ontario. The inaugural Artistic Director of the Chichester Festival was Sir Laurence Olivier, and it was at Chichester that the first National Theatre company was formed. Chichester's productions would transfer to the National Theatre's base at the Old Vic in London. The Theatres Act 1968 abolished the system of censorship of the stage that had existed in Great Britain since 1737.
Bill Mitchell (artistic director) Bill Mitchell (artistic director) Bill Mitchell (2 December 1951 – 14 April 2017) was the artistic director of Kneehigh Theatre from 1995 until 2002 and created site-specific theatre company Wildworks in 2005. William John Mitchell was born in Erith, Kent, and educated at Dartford Grammar School. He completed a foundation course at Medway School of Art and studied theatre design at Wimbledon School of Art. He moved to Cornwall with his wife Sue in 1988 and designed a number of Kneehigh's shows including "Tristan and Yseult" directed by Emma Rice, "The Red Shoes", and "A Matter of Life and Death".