Stuart Burge began his career as an actor with the Old Vic, the Bristol Old Vic, and the Oxford Playhouse. In 1952 he started to direct in repertory companies and the West End. He then went on to direct at the Old Vic, the Chichester Festival, the Dubrovnik Festival, and Stratford, Ontario. In 1968 he became director of the Nottingham Playhouse, and directed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1976 and the National Theatre in 1977; in February 1977, he took over as Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre.

In addition to his stage work, Burge has also had successful careers in film (There Was a Crooked Man, Othello with Laurence Olivier, The Mikado, and Julius Caesar) and television (The Power and the Glory, John Brown [1964 Writer’s Award winner], School for Scandal, his own adaptation of Under Western Eyes, and Sons and Lovers, which was shown on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre.)

Since his first residency as Granada Artist in Winter 1984, Burge has directed several productions in England (Including The Black Prince by Iris Murcoch, Curtains by Stephen Bill, and Sunsets and Glories by Peter Barnes) as well as The Dutch Courtezan at the Norwegian National Theatre in Bergen. His film and television work during this period includes Much Ado About Nothing (BBC-TV/PBS), The Importance of Being Earnest with Joan Plowright (BBC-TV) AND Chinese Whispers (BBC film). His most recent television works to be seen in this country were D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow, a three-part film starring Imogen Stobbs, and the award-winning film about Northern Ireland, Naming the Names, both of which were done for BBC-TV.