John Gordon Ash
John was the son of actors Gordon Ash and Eva Leonard Boyne. His parents first went to America with Harley Granville Barker’s production of Shaw’s “Fanny’s First Play” in 1912, and returned to the US in 1920 to settle in New York. Gordon, who was in the original US production of Coward’s “Fallen Angels”, died in New York in 1929. Eva was a Broadway regular for another 30 years and died in 1960. Her father was the Victorian actor Leonard Boyne. John was left behind in England and in 1936 started Lindfield Dramatic Club (of which I am currently secretary). After the war he pursued a career as a professional director; he directed Ronnie Barker and Maggie Smith at the Oxford Playhouse and Roger Rees at Wimbledon. His production of Sherriff’s “Journey’s End” was much admired. He died in Clacton, Essex in 2002.
Past productions
- Director, The Memoirs of Fanny Hill, Audrey Lupton and Arthur Lane and Gerald Bourne Productions Ltd
- Director, Rattle of a Simple Man
- / Director, Semi-Detached
- / Director, Amber for Anna
- Director, Brush With a Body
- Director, Fallen Angels
- Director, Four Winds
- Director, The Good Young Man
- / Director, Jupiter Laughs
- / Director, The Amorous Prawn
- Director, Towards Zero
- Producer, The Unguarded Hour, Oxford Playhouse Company
- Producer, Peg o’ My Heart, Oxford Playhouse Company
- Producer, Johnny Belinda, Oxford Playhouse Company
- Producer / Sir Ralph Whitcomb, The Man Who Changed His Name, Oxford Playhouse Company
- Director, Loophole
- Director / Hardy, Journey’s End
- Kenneth Lake, French Without Tears
