Andy de la Tour

The most recent productions Andy has directed have also been thrillers. He directed award-winning writer Louise Page’s stage adaptation of an Agatha Christie short story Love From a Stranger at the Mill Theatre in Sonning where he’d previously directed The Sound of Murder by William Fairchild. Most of his other productions have been comedies, including Robin Hawdon’s Shady Business, two major UK tours of Nobody’s Perfect, written by and starring Simon Williams and co-starring Stephanie Beacham as well as Simon Williams’s sequel play  Nobody’s Fool. He also directed Rik Mayall – a colleague from his stand-up comedy days – in A Family Affair, which Andy adapted from the original French play, Un Air de Famille.

Andy has also been a writer and actor for many years. He’s directed several of his own plays including Question Time, at the Arcola Theatre, London and two satirical comedies that he co-wrote with Tariq Ali and Howard Brenton, Collateral Damage at the Tricycle Theatre, London, and Snogging Ken which was performed at the Almeida Theatre, London.

As an actor he appeared at the National Theatre in London in No Man’s Land, the last play of his own that the late Harold Pinter himself directed. Andy was also in the world premiere of Harold Pinter’s final play, Celebration, both at the Almeida Theatre in London and the Lincoln Center in New York. He has also appeared in many TV shows and cinema films over the years, including Notting Hill, Oliver Twist and most recently the London gangster thriller, 44 Inch Chest. 

Andy was one of the original founders of the so-called alternative comedy scene in the London in the early 1980s, appearing at the famous – or perhaps it should be infamous – Comedy Store and Comic Strip clubs with the likes of Rik Mayall, French and Saunders, Ben Elton, Alexei Sayle and a host of others.

He lives a quieter life in London nowadays with his partner, actress and novelist, Susan Wooldridge, perhaps best known for her award-winning portrayal of ‘Daphne Manners’ in the classic television series The Jewel in the Crown.