From 1968 to 1986, he was the youngest-ever artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, directing more than 30 productions, from classics to new works including Nicholas Nickleby and Les Misérables. He was later director of the National Theatre, where award-winning productions included Not About Nightingales, Troilus and Cressida, Oklahoma!, The Merchant of Venice, Summerfolk, My Fair Lady, A Streetcar Named Desire, Anything Goes and Love’s Labour’s Lost. He directed the world premieres of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia and Rock ’n’ Roll; and of CATS, Sunset Boulevard, Starlight Express, Aspects of Love and The Woman in White by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Other theatre includes Hamlet, Richard II, Inherit the Wind, Kiss Me Kate (Old Vic); A Little Night Music (West End and Broadway); Heartbreak House, Flare Path, The Tempest (Theatre Royal, Haymarket); All That Fall (59E59); The Wars of the Roses (Rose Theatre); Pericles (TFANA).