Garry Robson

Born: March 3, 1952;

Died: July 26, 2024

Garry Robson, who has died aged 72, was a force of nature. This was the case whether as actor, playwright or director, all of which he excelled in with an energy, humour and heart that drove everything he did. While his disability was at the heart of Robson’s art, he transcended any notions of being patronised or ghettoised so his mercurial talent could shine through on its own terms.

He did this in his own plays, which included The Irish Giant (2003), for Birds of Paradise; and the Ian Dury-inspired Raspberry (2008), initially at Oran Mor in Glasgow, then at the Tron Theatre and on tour. Like Robson, Dury had contracted polio, and became a hero to Robson.

As an actor, Robson worked with key disabled theatre companies such as Graeae, with whom he appeared in Ian Dury-based musical, Reasons to be Cheerful (2012), and was in The Who’s Tommy for Ramps on the Moon. Robson also worked in mainstream commercial theatre, latterly in the Curve Leicester’s productions of White Christmas and Beautiful: The Carole King Story. On television, he appeared in the likes of The Bill (2006), Casualty (2015), and Silent Witness (2005-2020). Robson also had a stint presenting the BBC’s apocalypse-based children’s game show, Crisis Control (2009).

In 1999, he co-founded Fittings Multi Media Arts after initiating Fittings: The Last Freak Show (1999). Inspired by Tod Browning’s film, Freaks, Mike Kenny’s play for Graeae saw Robson play a leather clad ringmaster of a circus of some of his peers. The show was revived by Fittings in 2005. The name, Fittings, was inspired by Robson’s family, and how their company of travelling players would fit up their ad hoc stage as they moved from town to town.

With Theatre Workshop Edinburgh – the first integrated theatre company in Europe – Robson acted in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (2004), and Endgame (2007). He appeared in The Threepenny Opera again with Graeae.

With singer Sally Clay, Robson formed the core of Blind Gurl and the Crips, who won a Herald Angel Award in 2007.

From 2012 to 2018, Robson was co-artistic director of Glasgow-based company, Birds of Paradise. Robson had been connected with the company since The Irish Giant and had also acted in a BoP production of Mother Courage and Her Children (2011). Working alongside fellow actor/director Robert Softley Gale, and, until 2015, with producer Shona Rattray, Robson’s restless artistic vision saw him write and direct a stream of works. These included his own play, The Man Who Lived Twice (2012).

Robson directed Nicola McCartney’s play, Crazy Jane (2015); the Tempest-based Miranda and Caliban (2016), and Tin Soldier (2017). Robson also acted alongside Softley Gale in Blanch and Butch (2017).

Garry Robert Robson was born in Weldon, Northamptonshire, the eldest of three children to Pat and Bob Robson, who were 19 and 20 respectively when Garry was born. The couple had met at a dance, and lived with Pat’s adoptive parents, Carrie and George Freeman, and her Great Uncle Ted.

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While Bob’s family had moved from Newcastle to Corby, where Bob worked in the steelworks, Pat’s blood relatives were travelling players, who, as The Edwards Players, toured the country with a pop up theatre show. With Pat’s sister already working as a child actor in the company, another baby was out of the question, and Pat was left behind after the show finished in Weldon and was never collected.

In the midst of Pat and Bob’s extended family, Robson was a live wire from the start, and once he began walking was forever getting up to mischief. Tragedy struck when Robson was 15 months old, however, when he fell in a stream and contracted polio. Robson lost the use of his lower limbs and was put in the TB ward in Mansfield Hospital in Northampton, where he was left outside in all weathers in the misguided belief that the cold was good for his condition. Years of treatment and operations included being put on a rack with weights hanging on his legs to stop them from contracting.

This didn’t stop Robson becoming a goalkeeper in a local boys football team, which ran alongside a passion for music. He spent hours mimicking the drummer from the Dave Clark Five, and, aged ten, his mother took him to see rock and roll maverick, Gene Vincent. Vincent walked with a limp following a motorbike crash in 1955 and would go on to be immortalised in Ian Dury’s song, Sweet Gene Vincent. Robson’s mother wanted her son to see what was possible, and to never be held back by his disability.

Robson attended Weldon Church of England School, where he continued his mischief making, at one point setting a barn full of hay on fire but was given an alibi by his grandmother. After passing his 11-plus, Robson went to Corby Grammar School, where he channelled his intelligence into becoming the class clown.

(Image: Garry Robson in a production of Edmund the Learned Pig. Photograph by Joel Fyldes.)

Robson’s first foray into theatre came in the Weldon Church pantomime, where he donned a silly wig and went completely off script, entertaining the audience to a hilarious degree.

Robson failed his A-Levels, before passing retakes at Kettering Technical College. This took him to the University of Bradford, where he graduated with a sociology degree. In 1980, Robson and his young family moved to Nottingham, where he did an MA in social work at Nottingham University. Robson also sang with various bands around local pubs. Specialising in welfare rights, Robson worked for several years with an Independent Law Centre.

But it was inevitable that Robson would move into performing full time, which he did in 1991 when he and his expanded family moved to Scotland, and his adventures on stage and screen began. Throughout everything that followed, Robson’s energy knew no bounds.

With typical big-hearted bravura, Robson left his own epitaph on social media.

“I feel I should write something noble and grand but I’m not sure I’ve got much to say,” Robson wrote. “It has been an amazing experience but this last bit has been astonishingly beautiful. I’ve had such conversations with my wife, my children, my family, my friends, random strangers, it’s good. I should’ve been dead at 15 months, so 72 years. It’s just been amazing. Everything is so full. I feel absolutely chock-a-block. Got a lovely life and I’m happy to go but I’m interested to see what happens next.”

Robson is survived by his wife, Fiona Murdoch, his son Joe and daughter Jessica to his first wife, Jill; daughters Caitlin and Emma and son Robbie to Viv Dudley; grandchildren Josh, Ellie, Millie, Murray, Laena, Louie and Hallie; He is also survived by his sister Gail and brother, Mark; and by his step-children, Sarah and Daniel, and Sarah’s children, Conal and Ruben.

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