by My friend Neil Hornick, who died at the age of 85, was a co -founder of the Phantom Captain Experimental Theater Company in 1970, who operated Council with the financing of the Arts until 2006.
Neil was the full-time artist director of the Phantom captain for the entire time and supervised the productions of a large number of groundbreaking work, including plays, false lectures, improvised performances, haunting and street theatres, encounter workshops, residential projects and early video-based events.
From the mid -1980s to his death, he offered his services as a literary consultant for strenuous writers as part of the pseudonym Robert Lambarle, who rated and edited her manuscripts. One of his customers was the author Joanne Harris, known for her novel Chocolat from 1999, who was a teacher when she turned for help for the first time. In the 1980s, he also taught theater studies at the American students associated at the University of Maryland.
Neil was born in London as the son of Ben Hornick, a lithoographer, and Lily (born Phillips), a housewife. He completed his secondary school on Christ’s College Finchley and then received a degree in psychology at the University of College London. After a period abroad, from 1965 to 1966 he studied a postgraduate certificate in Drama at Bristol University and from then on was involved in the experimental Theater.
I met Neil in 2003 when I asked him in his literary consultant role to advise myself on a manuscript that I wrote. I found it impossible to get an obscure allusion to the guy with my eyes: “Name me an ignoramus if you like. One of his main principles was” a good editor must have the courage of his own ignorance “.
Neil’s extensive archives related to the Phantom Company were taken over by the British Library in 2022. Two years later, the Magic Eye, which he wrote about Stanley Kubrick’s cinematography many years ago, finally published, and there were tears in the author’s eyes when he held a copy in his hands.
He is survived by Ms. Savka and her children Gallin and Maya.
