Peter Williams (dance critic)

Peter Lancelot Williams (12 June 1914 – 10 August 1995) was an English designer and dance critic. He founded and edited the monthly magazine Dance and Dancers for thirty years, wrote columns for national newspapers and was an influential chairman of various committees and trusts.^[1]

Early life

Williams was born on 12 June 1914 in

During this period, he became assistant editor of Ballet, a magazine established just before the war by critic Richard Buckle.^[1] He resigned in 1950 and then founded, designed and edited Dance and Dancers, the first of a family of arts magazines published by Philip Dosse.^[4][1] He edited the magazine for thirty years, mainly from his home in Eaton Square.^[4]

He was the dance critic for the Daily Mail newspaper from 1950 to 1953. He was then the deputy critic for the Sunday newspaper, The Observer, from 1970 and became its main critic in 1982.^[1]

Williams also wrote or edited a number of books and exhibition catalogues. Among them are Covent Garden: 25 Years of Opera and Ballet, Royal Opera House (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1971); Ballets et Danseurs dans le Monde: Photographs de Serge Lido, with Odon-Jerôme Lemaitre (Paris: Éditions Vilo, 1973); and 50 Years of Ballet Rambert, 1926–1976, with Clement Crisp and Anya Sainsbury (Ilkley, West Yorkshire: Scolars Press, 1976). His most important work of dance writing, however, is his book Masterpieces of Ballet Design (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1981), an erudite and heavily illustrated discussion of the history of ballet stage décor.^[1]

Committee man

As a regular critic for national newspapers, Williams became part of an influential circle.

He was too tall to be a dancer himself, being six-foot by the age of twelve.^[1] He affected a languid, cosmopolitan style, smoking cigarettes such as Senior Service through a long cigarette holder, while his catchphrase was a drawled "awfully pretty".^[4][5] He did not marry.^[1]

He retired in 1990 but continued to attend the ballet.