Joss Bennathan obituary

My friend Joss Bennathan, who has died aged 56 of cancer, was an immensely gifted theatre director and drama teacher. He excelled at capturing the spirit of classic plays in modern, edgy renditions for contemporary audiences. With the company that he founded in 1999, Present Moment, he directed acclaimed productions of Wycherley’s The Country Wife, Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy and, at Wilton’s music hall, in east London, Jonson’s Volpone.

Working with school students was a key feature of Joss’s professional life. He gave them starring roles alongside more established actors in plays such as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus at Stratford Circus, Newham, drawing on talent from that borough and further afield in east London; his Theatre Lab programme co-produced Shakespeare plays with students in schools in Newham, Barking and Dagenham. As he told one interviewer: “I look for a way of telling a story clearly, to bring it to life and make it accessible without dumbing down.”