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Giles Havergal CBE
Late Coldstream Guards
by Colonel J D Bagshaw OBE LVO
formerly Coldstream Guards
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Giles Havergal died on 23rd August 2025 aged 87 and a matter of months after his brother Malcolm’s death. He led a life and career in very stark contrast to him, save for giving vent to the theatrical and musical bent which clearly ran through Macolm.
He followed his older brother into the Regiment and was granted a National Service Commission in April 1957, serving with the 1st Battalion in BAOR before finishing his service with No 13 Company at the Guards Depot. It was a short and uneventful precursor to an otherwise very successful career as an actor and more importantly as the Artistic Director of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow from 1969 to 2003, a length of tenure unmatched by any British Director anywhere. Renowned for producing daring and provocative theatre, he and his co-directors, Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald, were credited with helping launch the careers of such actors as: Sir Mark Rylance, Alan Rickman, Celia Imrie, Sir Gary Oldman and Rupert Everett; all now household names. In later life he focused on opera working, amongst others, with Opera North and Scottish Opera. He was also on the board of the Almeida Theatre in Islington for a period. He was made an OBE in 1987 and a CBE in 2002.
He is survived by his niece, Louise Havergal, Malcolm’s daughter. |
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