Graduating from Oxford Colin George started a touring Shakespeare Company. Before you could say "To be or not to be" he had played Romeo, Petruchio, Bassanio, Cassius, and Henry V - the latter on BBC television. Having added Hamlet and Brutus to his Shakespeare roles, in his forties he turned to directing, established the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with international designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch, at the instigation of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and inspired by their theatres in North America at Minneapolis and Stratford, Ontario.