BRITAIN: Joan Littlewood, one of the most innovative directors in British theatre, has died aged 87.
Ms Littlewood, whose company Theatre Workshop achieved a working class revolution on the stage, died in her sleep in Paris on Friday evening at the home of her assistant Peter Rankin, the Theatre Royal Stratford East said.
The critic Kenneth Tynan once said of her: "It now seems quite likely that when the annals of the British theatre in the middle years of the 20th century come to be written, Joan's name will lead all the rest."
Her most famous production was the 1963 musical, Oh What A Lovely War. But her breakthrough in London came in 1956 with The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan, set in a Dublin prison on the night of a hanging. Littlewood's company's flair for improvisation and rewriting - Behan's script was chaotic - drew full houses.
She started work before the second World War, when she was a communist, and was involved in several small socialist companies, before creating Theatre Workshop which arrived at Stratford East, east London, in 1953.
The Quare Fella transferred to the West End, and her work became labelled as "kitchen sink" drama alongside the Royal Court Theatre's work at that time.
"She hated that label but is regarded as being part of the 1956 working class revolution in British theatre," said Philip Hedley, artistic director of the Theatre Royal.
"It was rather unfair because she had been doing that kind of work before the war."
Reflecting her left-wing ideals, she introduced new plays by working class writers, such as Behan, and Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey (1958).
Her most famous production was her 1963 musical, Oh What A Lovely War!, of which the philosopher Bertrand Russell said: "It brought war to within our grasp, which is immensely difficult."
Littlewood was also known for being anti-establishment and for her harsh and outspoken comments.
Productions such as Behan's The Hostage and Frank Norman's Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be sent a much needed wind of change through the West End in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In later years she won many awards but Mr Hedley said: "She also refused a lot of awards, she was very anti-establishment, and famous for being very bluntly spoken, and for offending the high and mighty without any qualms at all."
She famously turned down both Michael Caine and Sean Connery for the Theatre Workshop and later insisted she had no regrets.
"They couldn't act for toffee," she once said, adding that Caine "would do more good working in a supermarket".
In the mid-1960s she worked in Tunisia and Calcutta, before returning to the Theatre Workshop for productions such as So You Want To Be In Pictures (1973).
But the Theatre Workshop effectively collapsed in 1975 after the sudden death of her beloved partner Gerry Raffles, who joined the company in 1945 and later became its manager.
Heartbroken, Littlewood retired from the theatre almost immediately, unable to go on without him.
She moved to France, after which she worked only occasionally in Britain.
In 1994 she published her autobiography, Joan's Book, and in 1995 the Directors' Guild honoured her with its lifetime achievement award.
She has asked for a private cremation in London and for her ashes to be taken to Vienne in France to be reunited with those of Mr Raffles, the theatre said.
Theatre Royal will be holding a memorial event for her to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Theatre Workshop company at Stratford East in early 1953.
In a recently published book, the late actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne said: "Littlewood was the most important influence of my life. I owe her everything."