Bill Kenwright

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Bill Kenwright O.B.E. (born 4 September 1945, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England) is a leading West End theatre producer.

He is also the Chairman of Everton Football Club, an English professional football club from the city of Liverpool.

He attended Booker Avenue County Primary School, and then Liverpool Institute High School from 1957 to 1964 and appeared in school productions (including Shylock in Merchant of Venice) on the stage in the Mount St. building (predecessor to LIPA. He was also treasurer of the Christian Union at school.

In 2007 Kenwright was a judge in the BBC1 television series "Any Dream Will Do."

Theatre

Kenwright is one of the UK's most successful theatre producers, best known for the long-running West End hit Blood Brothers and the record breaking tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Other recent productions have included West End runs of Whistle Down The Wind at the Palace Theatre, Festen in London, on a UK tour and now on Broadway, The Big Life, Elmina's Kitchen, Scrooge - The Musical, The Night Of The Iguana, A Few Good Men, A Man For All Seasons alongside UK tours of Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, Whistle Down The Wind, Tell Me On A Sunday, and This Is Elvis. He produced the London revival of Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre in September 2006, starring Anna Maxwell Martin, James Dreyfus and Sheila Hancock.

He has been highly instrumental in helping to start the careers of many current, leading West End theatre producers, including Mark Rubinstein and Marc Sinden.^[1]

It has been estimated that he employs more actors in a year than the BBC.^[2]

Current and recent productions include:

• Blood Brothers - Phoenix Theatre, London and on UK National Tour, starring Helen Hobson and Steven Houghton
• Fur Coat and No Knickers starring Harold Pinter 2008
• The Letter - Wyndham's Theatre, London, starring Jenny Seagrove and Anthony Andrews
• Cabaret - UK Tour, starring Wayne Sleep
• The Glass Menagerie - Apollo Theatre, London, starring Jessica Lange and Ed Stoppard
• Treats - Garrick Theatre, London, starring Billie Piper, Laurence Fox and Kris Marshall
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - Adelphi Theatre, London. with Lee Mead winner of BBC1 Any Dream Will Do
• The Unexpected Guest - UK National Tour, starring Simon MacCorkindale and Dean Gaffney
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - UK National Tour - currently starring Craig Chalmers, Antony Hansen, Henry Metcalfe and Tara Bethan
• Hay Fever - UK National Tour, starring Stephanie Beecham
• An Ideal Husband - UK National Tour, starring Kate O'Mara, Michael Praed, Carol Royle, Robert Duncan, Fenella Fielding, and Tony Britton
• Can't Smile Without You - UK National Tour (prior to West End) - starring Chesney Hawkes, Siobhan Dillon and Francesca Jackson

Music

Bill Kenwright has his own record label (Bill Kenwright Records), which has released three albums as of February 2008. The London Palladium cast recording of Scrooge starring Tommy Steele and the 2006 Lyric Theatre Recording of Cabaret were joined in February 2008 by the debut album of Kenwright's new boy group Dream On.

Dream On, comprising five runners up from the BBC's Any Dream Will Do - Craig Chalmers, Lewis Bradley, Chris Crosby, Chris Barton and Antony Hansen was formed in January 2008.

Perhaps less known is Bill's recording career both solo and with a group Bill Kenwright and the Runaways:

• "I want to go back there again"/"Walk through dreams" Columbia DB8239 (August 1967)^[3]

and solo, as Bill Kenwright:

• "Love's Black & White"/"Giving Up" MGM 1430 (July 1968)
• "Tiggy"/"House That Fell On Its Face" MGM 1463 (November 1968)
• "Baby I could be so good at loving"/"Boy & A Girl" MGM 1478 (January 1969)
• "Sugar Man"/"Epitaph"/"When Times Were Good" Fontana H1065 (October 1969)

Actor

As a young man he became an actor. He was not spectacularly successful, although he did hold down a role in Coronation Street for almost a year, as Gordon Clegg who was introduced in April 1968. Kenwright left to pursue his producing career in March 1969, although he did return to the show on occasion throughout the 1970s for guest appearances. He made brief stints in other shows, such as The Villains and The Liver Birds and in Carry On films.

Everton Football Club

Bill Kenwright is the current chairman of his boyhood team Everton Football Club, where he used to watch them in the "boys pen" section of Goodison Park. He succeeded Littlewoods director Sir Philip Carter in the role. Kenwright has been on the Everton board since 1984 and was elected as chairman in 1999 when Peter Johnson sold his shareholding in the club after the Football Association told to him sell his interests in either Tranmere Rovers or Everton as he was breaking the FA's rules.

1994 Buyout Proposal

Five years prior to this, the Birkenhead based businessman and Liverpool season ticket holder Johnson had pipped Kenwright to the purchase of Everton Football Club despite assurances from the Everton owner's family head Lady Grantchester that they would sell to Kenwright.

Kenwright's proposal was dismissed as "The Manchester Consortium" in the Liverpool Echo, the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester was enough to deter supporter's support. Kenwright's consortium included Manchester based Tom Cannon, Tony Tighe (who later went on to create The Everton Collection) and Mike Dyble whilst building magnate Arthur Abercromby was Cheshire based.

Kenwright, a director at Everton had an opportunity to sway the board members to accept his bid but chose not to because he did not want a public relations battle with the richer Johnson. Tighe in an interview with journalist David Conn said: "Bill didn't want a public row, that's why he didn't go to press much. He wanted the board to be unaminous. As he saw it, he didn't want Everton's name to be dragged through controversy."^[4]

In a bizarre twist, Johnson later installed Kenwright as vice-chairman and Carter as Chairman.

1999 Buyout Proposal & True Blue Holdings

Bill Kenwright secured 68% of Everton F.C. in 1999 from Peter Johnson for £20 million. In January 2000, a holding company True Blue (Holdings) Ltd was formed. The identity of those behind True Blue has never been revealed fully but stakeholders were thought to include Paul Gregg, Jimmy Mulville, Jon Woods and Willy Russell before it was dissolved in 2004.

Mihir Bose, the former Sports Editor of the BBC reported that Anita Gregg lent up to £7million to Bill Kenwright.^[5]

Upon completion of the deal, Kenwright said: "Acquiring Peter Johnson's shares is only the first step to restoring a great club to where it belongs - to where it should be. If you are going to run a successful football club you need two qualities: you need to be realistic and you need a plan. I'm realistic and I have a plan."^[6]

Bill Kenwright later said: "We should have had £42m not £22m. We bought and the money went into someone’s pocket. It didn’t go into the Club so we had no safety valve, we had no cushion."^[7]

Chairmanship

In June, Trevor Birch was appointed on the same day that Kenwright became Chairman as Chief Executive Officer to replace Michael Dunford who left the club after it was revealed he held 40,000 shares in ProActive Sports Management, the agency of Wayne Rooney and stood to profit personally from the sale. Birch resigned six weeks later.^[8] In September, an Extraordinary General Meeting was called by shareholders because "The shareholders of the Company express their deep concern at the current state of affairs in the Company". It called for the board of directors to resign if they did not address previous motions to the satisfaction of shareholders.^[9]

One of the first major hurdles facing Bill Kenwright was enticing a media company to invest in the club. NTL subsidary PremiumTV were close to purchasing shares Everton but it never materialised. Kenwright said: "We were close to doing a media deal with NTL when NTL went bust, out of business in that particular area of its activities. It was literally on the day that we were accepting a cheque for over £30m. Literally on the day. That was the very final major deal, not to be completed in this case, but after that there was no other major deal so we were in the...whatever."^[10]

During Kenwright's reign, Everton signed Ghana international Alex Nyarko for £4.5million from Lens in July 2000. He signed a five year deal with the club but his work permit was only valid for four years. The home office refused to extend his permit and the play had to be loaned to French clubs so Everton could avoid paying the full amount of wages.^[11]

He sacked former Rangers manager Walter Smith after poor performance in the league in March 2002 and appointed Preston North End manager David Moyes following Smith's recommendation.

In 2003, he attempted to relocate Everton to the Kings Dock on the riverside but after a public feud with director Paul Gregg over the proposal's finances and sale of Wayne Rooney, the move fell through. Gregg had wanted to keep Rooney at the club and Kenwright reluctantly felt it was best he be sold to ease the club's financial burden.^[12]

The Greggs later sold their shares to Robert Earl. Kenwright's close-friend Philip Green is believed to have helped him secure the club after being approached for help.^[13][14]

He is also very fond of former players and considers many personal friends. When former Everton player Dave Hickson suffered from a heart attack at Goodison Park, Bill Kenwright rode in the ambulance to the hospital with him. ^[15]

He invited several former players to Wembley for the 2009 FA Cup Final as guests.

In 2004, Everton were very close to filing for administration as they grew perilously close to overspending on their £5million overdraft provided by Barclays Bank. In February 2004, Everton borrowed £10m from Singer & Friedlander after a tribunal set a valuation of £10million on Wayne Rooney. Bill Kenwright described the loan as "an advance from Sky [Television]" to shareholders at the club's Annual General Meeting. Fourteen days after Rooney was sold to Manchester United, the loan was repaid.^[16]

Bill Kenwright is considered approachable by fans and prior to the EGM he contacted a fan website before the press regarding the meeting.^[17]

At the EGM, Kenwright unveiled Keith Wyness as the new Chief Executive Officer.

In 2007, Kenwright announced that he would like to relocate the club to Kirkby as part of a proposal known as Destination Kirkby which included a Tesco supermarket. This led to club shareholders calling for an Extraordinary General Meeting. At this meeting, Kenwright revealed that he took business advice from industry leaders Sir Philip Green and Sir Terry Leahy.^[18]

In April 2008, he agreed to produce Dixie: The People's Legend,a documentary on Everton legend Dixie Dean produced by Liverpool-based company Tabacula.^[19]

Everton fans often compare Bill Kenwright to those who own other Premier League clubs and Kenwright has always admitted he can't afford to compete financially with other clubs: "People often say to me: 'Get your cheque book out, Bill. If these people think that I have a cheque book with tens of millions of pounds at my disposal, they have the wrong person. I could no more buy all of Peter Johnson's shares than play centre-forward this Saturday. These amounts are not in my personal ball park."^[20]

The EGM was the second called under Kenwright's tenure and he revealed that he would be looking for a new owner for Everton Football Club. In July 2009, he lamented the club's financial position under his stewardship: "Our debt is a big debt and a worrying debt, but it is manageable because of our performance on the field and because we do well each year as a business, thanks to David (Moyes). But it is too much debt that every year is going to be added to.

"Every summer it’s the same problem. David must think ‘every summer, how can I do it?’. He must be sitting there looking at these figures thinking ‘they have given me nothing again and they want the Champions League’.

"But we do manage to sustain the debt. We have a good bank and we have had to go to them again this summer. All we can do is borrow and that’s what we are doing again this year to give David not nearly enough money to take a club that’s finished fifth in the last two seasons even higher".^[21]

Personal life

Kenwright was married to hotelier Anouska Hempel from 1978 to 1980 and has a daughter and two grandchildren from his relationship with the actress Virginia Stride. He is currently in a long-term relationship with actor and political activist Jenny Seagrove. They live in London.

Honours

In the year 2000 Kenwright was awarded the CBE for his services to film and theatre.

In November 2008 he was awarded an honorary degree from Nottingham Trent University.

References

External links

• Bill Kenwright Productions
• Bill Kenwright at the Internet Movie Database
• 9 video of Kenwright on "great" new "musical star" Lee Mead, whom BBC One viewers had chosen by phone vote minutes earlier to play the lead role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat