Nicholas Newton is a theatre, television and radio producer. In 1972 he co-founded the Bush Theatre, London, the home of new writing in the UK. In 1975 he worked for West End producers, Michael White and HM Tennent. In the late 1970’s he started producing in London’s West End, first with Gigi at the Fortune Theatre in 1976, followed by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. At the beginning of the 1980’s he joined the management of the Royal National Theatre as Special Projects Executive where he managed the television co-productions of the National Theatre’s repertoire including The Oresteia, On the Razzle, The Beggars Opera and The Mystery Plays for Channel 4 Television, the BBC and Time Warner working with all the directors in particular Sir Peter Hall, Bill Bryden CBE and Sir Richard Eyre. In 1982 he established the Royal National Theatre’s Development Council which raised considerable funds for the National Theatre.
In 1994, he formed Promenade Productions and produced the spectacular production of The Big Picnic at the Harland and Wolff Shed, Govan, which he also produced for BBC Television. He has continued to produce theatre in the West End, including the award winning production of Tennessee Williams’ Baby Doll at the Noel Coward Theatre. He was a co-producer of the Lincoln Center’s production of South Pacific which opened at the Barbican Theatre in 2011 and successfully toured the UK throughout 2012. In 2013 he co-produced The Pirates of Penzance with Scottish Opera and D’Oyly Carte Opera Company which toured major venues in the spring and summer of 2013.
He is also the producer of more than 40 dramas for radio including The Leopard with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell and A Life of Chekhov adapted from the book by Irene Nemirovsky by Michael Hastings with Andrew Scott. In 2021 he produced the 16-part drama podcast series Nuremberg a dramatisation of the War Crimes trial following the Second World War and in 2023 Nazis: The Road to Power both for BBC Sounds.
His father was the stage and film actor Robert Newton. His grandfather was the artist Algernon Newton RA. He is married to Caroline Elizabeth Oliphant White and has two children, Matthew and Jack.