My friend Ken Chubb, who has died aged 80, was the founder, along with his wife, Shirley Barrie, of the London-based Wakefield Tricycle theatre company in 1972. Eight years later he and Shirley set up the Tricycle theatre in north-west London to provide a permanent base for the company’s productions.
Working with a small team of actors, Ken was the theatre’s artistic director for four years from its foundation, until he and Shirley returned to their native Canada. Over that period, and before that with the travelling company, he was a notable champion of new plays by writers such as Sam Shepard, John Antrobus and Olwen Wymark.
The theatre still exists in the same place, although it is now known as the Kiln.
Ken was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the son of a Baptist minister, Laurence, and his wife, Gladys (nee Penny). He went to Annandale school in Tillsonburg before studying at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Martin Luther University College), where he gained a degree in English, and then Carleton University, where he completed an MA in the same subject.
After teaching English at a secondary school he returned to Carleton University as a lecturer in 1969 until, in 1971, he and Shirley, whom he had married in 1967, came to England, intending to stay for just a year.
Not long after their arrival Ken went to a pub, the Pindar of Wakefield (now the Water Rats) in Gray’s Inn Road, central London, to see a lunchtime theatre show. When it turned out to have been cancelled, he got talking to the landlord, who agreed that Ken could put on his own productions in the pub’s back room, using friends who were actors or teachers.
He started off by producing and directing a six-month run of Shepard plays, and when they proved popular he was able to apply for Arts Council grants that allowed him to establish the touring Wakefield Tricycle Company.
Eventually he and Shirley were able to give the company a permanent home by creating what was initially the Wakefield Tricycle theatre in Kilburn. With Ken as the theatre’s artistic director they put on more than 40 productions from 1980 to 1984.
In 1985 he and Shirley went back to Canada, where Ken became a story and script editor for film and television, including for CTV. In 1989 he began a series of workshops across Canada for CBC to find and train minority ethnic writers for television.
After Shirley died in 2018 Ken slowed down, but he continued to work on scripts, including for Shelley Niro’s film Café Daughter in 2023. He also arranged a reading of Shirley’s play The Revelation at his retirement home in 2024.
He is survived by his children, Alexis and Robin, and grandson, Tristan.
