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.
Tom Morris (director) Tom Morris (director) Tom Morris, OBE (born 22 June 1964 in Stamford, Lincolnshire) is an English theatre director, writer and producer. He was the Artistic Director at BAC (Battersea Arts Centre) from 1995-2004, he has been Associate Director at the National Theatre since 2004 and Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic since 2009. Morris was born in 1964. He is the younger brother of satirist Chris Morris. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit boys' boarding independent school in Lancashire in north west England, and then read English Literature at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge from 1983