Alan Tagg

Set designer

By VARIETY STAFF

Alan Tagg, prominent Brit legit set designer best known for the shabby bed-sitting room in the original 1956 Royal Court Theater production of John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" and "The Entertainer" (1957) starring Laurence Olivier, died Nov. 4 in a London nursing home. He was 74.

Sutton-in-Ashfield, England, native studied at Mansfield College of Art, trained at the Old Vic's acad, joined other former students in founding the Royal Court Company and began his nearly four-decade career with the West End production of Charles Morgan's "The River Line" in 1952.

Known for his detail sets for the National Theater, the Chichester Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company and many of Alan Ayckbourn's West End plays, his other credits include John Arden's 1958 "Live Like Pigs" (slum dwellings). Willis Hall's 1959 "The Long and the Short and the Tall" (about Japanese prisoners of war) Royal Court and innovative 1965 amphitheater production of Arthur Wing Pinero's "Trelawney of the Wells" at Chichester.

He was nommed for a London Theater Crix Award for an RSC revival of Dion Boucicault's "London Assurance" (1970) and a Tony nom for Peter Shaffer's "Black Comedy" (1966) . Broadway credits also include "Lettice and Lovage" (1990).

He is survived by his longtime partner Charles and a brother.