Frank Dunlop obituary

"Apocket dynamo of a man who seemed to bounce as he walked along, Frank Dunlop will be remembered for many outstanding and remarkable achievements, but most notably as the founding director of the Young Vic in 1969 and as a controversial director of the Edinburgh international festival from 1983 to 1991. He was a key member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre at the Old Vic, which he joined in 1967 as an associate director with a determination to initiate a young people's programme;"

"In Edinburgh he expanded upon the drama programme initiated by his predecessor, Sir John Drummond. Dunlop, who has died aged 98, took Peter Daubeny's World Theatre Seasons of the mid-1960s in London as his model, and brought to the festival directors as brilliantly diverse as Yukio Ninagawa, Ingmar Bergman and Andrzej Wajda, as well as the Berliner Ensemble in its last great phase and the Renaissance Theatre Company of the young Kenneth Branagh."

Frank Dunlop founded the Young Vic in 1969 after joining Laurence Olivier's National Theatre at the Old Vic in 1967 as an associate director determined to initiate a young people's programme. He helped establish a new theatre company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 1976. As director of the Edinburgh International Festival from 1983 to 1991 he expanded the drama programme and invited a vividly diverse range of international directors and companies. His work with young performers produced a professional staging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1972 that transferred to London and the West End.

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