- He was director of the New Victoria Theater in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England.
- He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1998 Queen's New Years Honors List for his services to drama.
- He is survived by his two daughters-Kate and Betsy Cheeseman with his first wife, Joyce Holliday, Kate and Betsy. In 1985, he married the actress, Romy Saunders, and they have a daughter, Chloe Cheeseman.
- He retired from the New Vic Theatre in 1998, he threw himself into work on the theatre archive and with the NCDT.
- He produced 392 main house productions at the Vic and then New Vic theatres, directing 147 himself. They included 11 musical documentaries using locally based folk musicians. At least one, "The Fight for Shelton Bar," played its part in the temporarily successful campaign to save a local steelworks. The most popular was "The Knotty," the story of the North Staffordshire Railway, revived last year at the instigation of a sponsor.
- At Derby Playhouse in Derby, Derbyshire, England from 1959, he was employed as audience entertainer to directing one in four productions. In 1961 he joined Stephen Joseph of Studio Theatre Company employing both Alan Ayckbourn and a Harold Pinter recently mauled by national theatre critics was doing summer seasons in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England and looking for a base in the Potteries. He combined directing with administrative assistance and developing new theatre plans. He brought Studio Theatre to Stoke in 1962.
- He attended 10 schools as his family followed his civil servant father around the country. He studied theatre at the University of Sheffield in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England and, after gaining a Diploma in Education, took a short service commission in the Royal Armed Forces.
- He fought for 20 years to open the country's first purpose-built theatre-in-the-round, the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1986, and gave a home to the newly formed Lindsay String Quartet, leading directly to what is now the largest chamber music promoter outside London, the Sheffield-based Music in the Round. He also improved the National Council for Drama Training (NCDT), founding the pioneering Master of Fine Arts course in directing at Birkbeck College in London, England.
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