Henry Woolf

Henry Woolf, a renowned figure in British and Canadian theatre, has passed away peacefully aged 91 in Saskatoon. Woolf, a life-long friend of Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, commissioned and directed Pinter’s first play, the Room, in which he also starred as Mr. Kidd. The son of immigrants from Romania, Woolf was descended from a long line of Jewish intellectuals and rabbis – including Rabbi Luria, the Jewish mystic, and Rabbi Loew of Prague. He grew up in London’s East End, alongside Pinter, with whom he attended Hackney Downs Grammar School. It was an upbringing infused with intellectual discourse and politics which Woolf described vividly in his memoir Barcelona is in Trouble. Woolf was evacuated to Norfolk during World War II, where he prayed to God to intervene to stop him taking an exam he had not prepared for. The Lord interceded, as Woolf later recounted, and the Nazis dropped a huge incendiary device on the school, blowing it to smithereens the night before the exam. A vivid raconteur, Woolf was known for his comedic timing and wit, a skill he brought to bear in collaboration with some of Britain’s comedy greats including Eric Idle, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Woolf was a key figure in Rutland Weekend Television, Idle’s successor to Monty Python, where, among his sketches, Woolf played Karl Marx, a cross-dressing TV announcer and a self-effacing shop keeper blamed for the world’s ills.

In the Rutles’ film spoof of the Beatles, All You Need is Cash, Woolf appeared alongside George Harrison as Arthur Sultan, a parody of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Among Woolf’s film credits were Gorky Park, in which he played a pathologist alongside William Hurt, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which led to a cult following, eclipsed only by his portrayal of “the Collector” a sinister extra-terrestrial accountant, in a series of Dr. Who. In both the film and TV series of Steptoe and Son, a comedy sitcom, Woolf played Frankie Barrow, the “Godfather of Shepherd’s Bush”. Woolf worked alongside greats including Orson Welles, Peter Brook, Peter O’Toole, Laurence Olivier and Pinter. He played a pivotal role in experimental theatre from the late 1950s to the 1970s, appearing both in London’s West End and Broadway in New York, where he met his wife of over 55 years, Susan Williamson, while appearing alongside her in Peter Brook’s production of Peter Weiss’s Marat Sade. Woolf’s devotion to his wife, with whom he shared a close and joyous partnership, was seconded only by his devotion to his craft and his students.

Multi-talented, Woolf acted, directed and wrote plays, including Underarm Bowling, at London’s The Roundhouse, and a Klezmer Opera, Love and Latkes, produced in Saskatoon. He was awarded a string of accolades during his career, including a best actor award for his portrayal in Edmonton of comic Tony Hancock in the one man show, Hancock’s Last Half Hour, which was written for him by his friend Heathcote Williams. In the West End, Woolf played Filch in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera and also played in countless plays at The Royal Court including AC/DC which won the Evening Standard Award. He was called the “King of the Avant Garde” for his work in new plays. He appeared in several Samuel Beckett plays, including Endgame, which toured Ireland, and Waiting for Godot, at Saskatoon’s Persephone theatre. Although he was right at the centre of the Theatre of the Absurd, Woolf liked to boast how it was his wife Susan who was the actress of choice for cutting-edge directors, including Peter Brook. A father of four children, Woolf’s eclectic acting and directing career led him to appear in a number of children’s productions. During the 1970s, he presented the popular educational BBC TV series, Words and Pictures. He also played Doctor Cornelius in the BBC series of C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian.

In 1978, he moved to Canada to teach drama, and work in theatre. At the Vancouver Shakespeare Festival he directed a number of productions, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy of Errors. Ever pushing the boundaries of theatre, in 2003 he directed an all-female production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, at the University of Winnipeg. As Artistic Director of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, he directed a rock-and-roll version of Hamlet, set Much Ado About Nothing in a world of insects, and put on a hippie version of As You Like it, in which a V.W. bus rolled on stage full of smoke.

Woolf’s love affair with Canada, took him first to Edmonton and then to Vancouver, where like his elder brother Louis, he taught at UBC. In 1983, he accepted a university teaching job in Saskatoon, a city he adored, along with the people in it. He joined the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan in 1983, serving as Head of the drama department for many years, where he was much loved by students and faculty alike. He received the Master Teacher Award in 1994 and retired, at the compulsory age of 67, in 1997. Upon his retirement, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from the University of Saskatchewan (USASK) and in 2006 he received the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal. Henry was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2015. On his 90th birthday, USASK’s drama department inaugurated a drama scholarship in his name. A vibrant figure on the Saskatoon cultural landscape, Henry served as Artistic Director of the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival from 1991 to 2001.

Woolf continued to act and direct well into his 80s and 90s even, during the pandemic, via Zoom. In his later years, he returned to London from Canada many times to appear in Pinter productions including at the Almeida, and the National Theatre, where he reprised his roles as Mr. Kidd in Pinter’s the Room, and the Hothouse, which was dedicated by Pinter to Woolf. At the Lincoln Center Festival in 2001 in New York, Woolf performed Monologue, a play that was written for him by Pinter. Pinter’s only novel the Dwarfs, was loosely based on their experience in Hackney growing up. Woolf wrote regularly to Pinter and donated his decades-long correspondence with the playwrite to the British Library for scholars of theatre to study. Like Pinter, Woolf was uncommonly well read, with an encyclopedic knowledge of history – particularly military history - poetry and literature. He could quote any Shakespeare play on demand, and at age 90 performed Pinter’s Monologue by heart to an international audience via Zoom.

Woolf received accolades for his portrayal in Saskatoon of Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. A portrait of him in that role hangs outside the theatre named after him at the University of Saskatchewan Drama Department. Woolf is survived by his wife Susan and four children: Marie, Sebastian, Hilda and Benjamin. Woolf’s family hope to have a celebration of his full and remarkable life with his countless friends and loved ones this Summer in Saskatoon. Arrangements are in care of Ashley Knash – Mourning Glory Funeral Services (306) 978-5200

He was Born for Joy