Roy Selfe Dies

almost 10 years ago
Standard

Stalwart of Runnymede Drama Group for 43 years, it is with great sadness that we record the death of Roy Selfe at 7.20am on 6th June 2014.

Roy gave up performing only last summer after 70 years on the stage, 43 of them with RDG.

He burst on to the RDG stage in 1970 playing the exuberant Bobby van Huesen in The Boyfriend. That spirited portrayal was the precursor of well over 80 performances where Roy’s vitality endeared him to audiences over five decades.

Whatever the role Roy always brought his own warmth and special interpretation to the character. From that rich and extensive gallery everybody will have their own favourite.

In the early days he played, amongst others, the M.C. in Oh What a Lovely War and Higgins in My Fair Lady. Later successes include playing Sir in The Dresser and Billy Flynn in Chicago. More recently he made a delightful Uncle Jack in Dancing at Lughnasa and a wonderful Irish eccentric in The Cripple of Inishmaan

Roy had a great gift for comic timing and has acute talent for catching the right style for playwrights such as Joe Orton (The Erpingham Camp, The Good and Faithful Servant and Entertaining Mr. Sloane) and Alan Ayckbourn (Woman in Mind, Season’s Greetings, A Chorus of Disapproval).

Roy also had a great love of the musical ~ and appeared in well over a dozen for RDG – most recently in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

In addition to our main productions Roy featured in 22 festival plays – winning a Best Actor Award for his appearance as a theatre critic in The Real Inspector Hound. He also appeared in Bed which won the English Final in 2002.

Roy also directed 10 plays for the group including Outside Edge, Hobson’s Choice and our 1979 production of When we Are Married.

When he burst on our stage in 1970 little did we know then the joy Roy would bring to us and to our audiences. What has shown through all those 43 years is Roy’s warmth, sense of enjoyment and innate love of the stage. He will be sorely missed.