Andy Phillips had a long relationship with the actor and Labor MP Glenda Jackson.
By the early 1970s, Jackson’s marriage was having issues, and in 1975, she started an affair with Andy Phillips, the lighting director for the Hedda Gabler play in which she was starring. In November of that year, Roy Hodges filed a divorce petition against Jackson citing her adultery with Phillips. The divorce was finalised in 1976. Up until 1981, Jackson and Phillips had a sporadically-occurring romance.
Who was Andy Phillips
The son of a priest, Phillips was born at Cradley Heath, in the west Midlands, and educated at Dr Challoner’s grammar school, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
Also Read: Who was Roy Hodges, Glenda Jackson’s ex-husband?
He performed in plays at the Margate Theatre Royal (Scarlet Pimpernel, Nude with Violin), and in 1960, he founded Group One Productions to bring Picasso’s play to Edinburgh. In Covent Garden’s Neal’s Yard, he produced stage props. He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company first as a stage worker and then as a dayman electrician. After that, he went to the Royal Court.
He collaborated with all of the Court’s top writers and directors. His to-do list was lengthy. Every three to six weeks, or more frequently, plays were changed. The lighting setup was struck after a play on Saturday and a new one was set up so that it could “tech” the following play on Sunday morning.
White light was a signature of Phillips. However, it was the prism’s puritanical accuracy, in which all hues, tones, and shades are present. A microscope with its objective set on the horizon. It displayed what was present. Nothing could be more vivid or rich.
Technically speaking, the 1968 trip to London by the Berliner Ensemble had an impact on him.
After the Court, he worked all around the world. He worked closely with John Dexter on a number of projects, including A Streetcar Named Desire, The Merchant, The Party, Galileo, and plays and operas. Both Dexter and his agent Peter Crouch both away in 1984.
Andrew Phillips, lighting designer was born on December 30, 1940 and died on September 1, 2004.
