This Man Rose

Kenneth Rose, who has already passed into legend a decade after his death, was devoted to the arts to the exclusion of all else except for the money problems they attract in a long lifetime.

He was realist enough not to expect to be popular outside his own circle. In a summary of his career in an earlier publication by the society he accepted the description of director, producer, actor, author, composer, librettist and dreamer of dreams.

But he struck out the word controversialist. He considered himself the most reasonable of men often the only one in step. Conservatives tended to think of him as one of themselves who had taken a wrong turning, Socialists saw him as an elitist because he knew what he wanted and was prepared
to fight for it. And councillors of all parties resented his knowing better than they did about most things in which they had a common interest.

Sadly his genuine desire to create a theatre and arts centre for the benefit of the community was distorted to suggest that he wanted a rich man's plaything for the amusement of his chosen friends. He resented deeply the lip service paid to his work accompanied by official policy of making life difficult. He complained regularly of the policy of doling out grants in quarterly instalments and contesting rating exemptions he knew the theatre was entitled to have.

The Playhouse suffered all through its 22 years of active life from being known as the Nonentities' theatre instead of Kidderminster's theatre. The local authority invariably thought of him as an importunate fellow trying to prise cash from the rates for his pet schemes and never gave credit for the £20,000 (at least) from his own pocket which went towards fending off the crises.

He was a man of the arts in a broader compass than the theatre. He had been an actor of some substance before advancing years discouraged him from studying long parts, a director of real talent, a playwright with original ideas, a musician in a limited but practical fashion and a visual artist whose work was accepted for Royal Academy exhibitions.

His determination was fearsome to behold (as when he was advised that it would be pointless to sue for the value of his bulldozed theatre). His musical shows always had something new and it should not be forgotten that his greatest success, the musical version of Trilby in 1962, took a subject Rodgers and Hammerstein were said to have turned down because it was too difficult to stage.

His background as a Worcestershire farmer provided the inspiration for a powerful play called Possession, in which Humphrey Heathcote played the bulldog man of the (and who could have been the author himself.

He travelled widely to see new work and he died as he would have wished, aged 74, within a few minutes of leaving a matinee performance at a London theatre.