THE STAGE
April 2011
PAUL IMBUSCH
Paul Imbusch was a consummate actor who had a wonderfully varied stage career spanning regional,
West End and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Prior to performing, he was a Bevin Boy briefly before becoming an army sergeant major. Imbusch
also developed a talent for caricatures when he worked for a publisher of comics.
Work as an amateur actor put him in the public eye and the agent Phil Payne saw his Danilo in The
Merry Widow. He gained a great deal of experience while performing at The Questors Theatre in
Ealing, London, from 1951 to 1965, and as a tenor with the BBC singers. Repertory jobs galore
followed at Bath, where he was a leading actor, along with a performance in the Happy Apple in the
West End and a continuing round of reps at York Theatre Royal, Derby, Jersey, Leicester, Eastbourne
and on to Malta.
Imbusch spent some of his happiest times at the Bristol Old Vic under Val May from 1972-75. He
performed a notable Menenius in Coriolanus at the RSC Stratford in 1977 and again in the Aldwych
season 1978-1979. Following that, he played a variety of parts at Birmingham Rep, Manchester Royal
Exchange, Hornchurch, Newbury and Northampton, and at the National Theatre in 1983.
In 1984 he performed as Mr Crabtree in the English Touring Theatre's School for Scandal, as well as a
TV role in Dombey and Son.
In 2000 Imbusch was at the Whitehall Theatre in Penny for a Song and he went on to take part in the
Peter Gill season at Sheffield in 2002.
Paul Imbusch's career ended on February 15, at the age of 84. His will stated: "I have enjoyed my life."
John Atterbury
PAUL IMBUSCH AT THE QUESTORS
1954 A Jig for a Gypsy
1954 King John
1955 The World's Wonder
1956 Getting Married
1956 Gilgamesh
1956 SS Tenacity
1957 The Golden Cuckoo
1957 The Government Inspector
1957 The Miser
1957 Pygmalion
1958 Julius Caesar
1958 The Long Spoon
1958 Maria Marten or The Murder in The Red Barn
1959 The Drunkard
1959 Questrionics
1960 The Beggars' Opera
1960 The House of Cowards
1960 Misalliance
1960 Professor Taranne
1960 Three Sisters
1960 The Ticket of Leave Man
1961 Charley's Aunt
1961 Lady Audley's Secret
1961 The Living Room
1962 Bulldog Drummond
1962 Going-Going
1962 Pygmalion
1964 Dandy Dick
1964 A Midsummer Night's Dream
1964 Nathan and Tabileth
1964 No Quarter
1964 Pop
1964 Sweeney Todd
1965 The Confidential Clerk
1965 How I Assumed the Role of a Popular Dandy |
