Measly OBE? He should be knighted - Theatre impresario Braham Murray

IN 1964, a play about capital punishment called Hang Down Your Head and Die, which probably influenced the subsequent parliamentary vote for abolition, was produced in Oxford, then transferred to London’s West End, and later that year went to Broadway.
It played to full houses everywhere, despite the efforts of the Lord Chamberlain’s office to censor two-thirds of it. The director, Braham Murray, achieved something that has yet to be surpassed: at the time of this production, he was only 21 years old.
On his return to the UK, Mr Murray continued a career that has seen him direct plays all over the UK, in particular Manchester.
HE co-founded the Royal Exchange Theatre and, in addition to main house productions, organised touring theatre where great plays (for instance Robert Lindsay playing Hamlet) were shown in small towns all over Lancashire.
When the 1996 IRA bomb destroyed the centre of Manchester, Braham Murray helped to obtain a grant of £17million to rebuild it and the Royal Exchange Theatre continues to flourish.
Still working, 50 years on from his first schoolboy productions, Braham Murray has energetically used his considerable gifts to enrich British theatre
So, I was pleased to read on page 2 of last week’s New Journal that Mr Murray, now a Camden resident, has at last, been honoured in the New Year list – a knighthood. of course, to equal that of his old pal Nicolas Hytner, whom he helped to train back in the 1980s? No, folks, not a knighthood, only a measly OBE!
Mr Murray’s big mistake was probably to spend his career up the in frozen North, so far from Buckingham Palace and the Downing Street cronies who make these ridiculous decisions.
When is this absurd and out-of-date system going to be opened up for public scrutiny so that people like you and me can vote for candidates to be honoured?
While they are pondering this, perhaps they could start by getting rid of the word “Empire”, which prevents people
like Benjamin Zephaniah accepting
an award.
Congratulations to Mr Murray for at last being honoured at nearly 70 years old...
Shame they did not get it quite right.
Micheline Lobjois
Bartholomew Road NW5