David Thacker

He is married to the actress Margeot Leicester.{{Cite web |date=1995-04-29 |title=How We Met: David Thacker and Arthur Miller |url=https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/how-we-met-david-thacker-and-arthur-miller-1617705.html |access-date=2025-05-18 |website=The Independent |language=en}} They have four children and Four grandchildren and live in Crouch End, London

Thacker was born in Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire and brought up in nearby Rushden. He was educated at Wellingborough Grammar School and the University of York where he read English and Related Literature and studied under Philip Brockbank for an MA in Shakespeare.{{Cite web |title=Thacker, David 1950– {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/thacker-david-1950 |access-date=2025-06-04 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}

Thacker was the artistic director at the Octagon Theatre Bolton[http://www.octagonbolton.co.uk Octagon Theatre Bolton] until July 2015, when he stepped down to become the first Professor of Theatre at University of Bolton. He will continue as associate director, directing two productions per year, until 2018.[http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/news/degree-of-difference-for-bolto-4070 Degree of difference for Bolton], British Theatre Guide, sourced 3 January 2017 He has directed over 100 theatre productions including plays by William Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Tom Stoppard and Eugene O'Neill.

In 1992 Thacker directed his first TV drama, Ibsen's A Doll's House for BBC which was nominated for a BAFTA (Best single drama). The success of this led to more TV dramas including Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and his BBC modern dress film of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, which was selected for the International TV Festival in Guatemala in 1996. For ten years (1997 - 2007, he combined freelance theatre productions and television films and dramas - directing more than 30 TV films for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and WGBH Boston (USA). {{Cite web |date=2024-12-30 |title=David Thacker: A Visionary in Theatre and Television Direction - News Dipper |url=https://newsdipper.co.uk/david-thacker-visionary-theatre-director |access-date=2025-06-04 |language=en-US}}

Thacker’s current role as Professor of Theatre and Film enables him to direct freelance theatre productions and films. In October 2019 Thacker directed The Merchant of Venice at the Great Theatre of China for Shanghai Theatre Academy and Fortune All Asia Pacific Entertainment (Shanghai) Company, in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company. This project was part of the RSC’s Shakespeare Folio Translation Project to produce new theatrically viable, actor-friendly, audience-accessible Chinese translations of Shakespeare’s plays.

In Spring 2019 Thacker directed the northern premiere of Arthur Miller’s, The Last Yankee, and in the spring 2020 directed Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, for his new professional company, funded by the University of Bolton, at Bolton Library Theatre, a theatre he created for Bolton Library and Museum Services, to provide a catalyst for learning for students on the BA Theatre Programme.

During the COVID 19 pandemic, he completed an extensive innovative film project for University of Bolton – The Alternative Graduation. This involved designing the only Covid-secure in-person graduation ceremony in the UK and directing 14 feature-length graduation documentary films for the benefit of graduates, their friends, and families.

In 2024 Thacker set up Form and Pressure to develop collaborations with fringe theatre's, to promote training, education and film projects. Form and Pressure has now presented three critically acclaimed co-productions with Rising Moon Productions at The Kings Arms, Salford - David Mamet's American Buffalo, Brian Friel's Faith Healer and 'That Can't Have Happened!' , a verbatim play, created from transcripts he had with five survivors of domestic abuse at the women's refuge in Bolton, Fortalice. He is currently adapting Dickens' A Christmas Carol, for Form and Pressure's fourth co-productions with Rising Moon Production in December 2025.{{Cite web |last=Hulme |first=Alan |date=2025-01-08 |title=David Thacker to direct Faith Healer in Salford |url=https://www.theatrereviewsnorth.com/post/david-thacker-directs-faith-healer |access-date=2025-06-04 |website=TheatreReviewsNorth |language=en}}

Form and Pressure is developing a feature film, co-written with Phil Vasili, based on the life of the first black outfield football player and WW1 hero, Walter Tull (1888 - 1918)

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• {{cite web | title=David Thacker Biography | url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/12/David-Thacker.html | work=filmreference | year=2008 | access-date=2008-09-01}}

• {{IMDb name|856827}}

{{OlivierAward Director 1976–2000}}

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Category:1950 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of the University of York

Category:Laurence Olivier Award winners

Category:English theatre directors

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