Gill performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company before embarking on a successful directing career.

Gill performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company before embarking on a successful directing career Theatre director, playwright and actor Peter Gill, who has died aged 86, has been described as a "gentle man with a fierce intelligence" who had a "quietly seismic" influence on British theatre. Cardiff-born Gill performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared in films including HMS Defiant and Zulu before embarking on a successful theatre directing career. Among those to pay tribute was Welsh actor Luke Evans, who credited Gill with launching his own career. Gill's agent Mel Kenyon said his work had a "rare emotional delicacy" that was "beautifully observed and finely tuned". Gill is closely associated with his work at the Royal Court in London, where he is credited with introducing the plays of English writer DH Lawrence to the theatrical world. Born in Cardiff on 7 September 1939, he was raised in a working-class community and remained "fiercely proud of his Welsh heritage throughout his life", according to an obituary written by his agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates. He pursued an acting career from the age of 18 before moving into theatre, most closely associated with the Royal Court, where he championed three Lawrence plays A Collier's Friday Night, The Daughter-in-Law and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd.