Remembering David Morse

Former Company Principal and Video Archivist David Morse (1943–2025) was part of the dance world for 50 years.

Born in Hitchin in 1943, David started his dance career by pure chance. Talking to Richard Edmonds for BRB’s Friends’ magazine back in 2011 when he retired, David explained, ‘I was at an infants’ school, and the teacher said improvise, so I improvised. A school inspector called in to see how our project was progressing and said “that boy’s got talent”. My mother was told, “your child must go to a dance school”’.

David started his training locally with The Victory Dots – the only boy in the school – before transferring to The Margaret Anderson School. When the time came to apply to the Royal Ballet School he was lucky enough to be offered a place, but as he described, the process was daunting: ‘At the time, since I was an only a child, I suppose I didn’t realise the stature of these people, but I remember Arnold Haskell, the dance writer, was on the panel, along with Ursula Morton and Peggy van Praagh.’ David's working class family wouldn’t have been able to support him at the school, but the then Labour Government, and its Minister for the Arts Jenny Lee, had introduced a grant that allowed David to take up his place. As he said ‘there were many boys there at the time in a similar position to me, but on stage we all became princes’.

After just one year at the Royal Ballet Upper School, David joined The Royal Ballet and was soon being given opportunities to take on leading roles.

‘My first great opportunity occurred in 1964, when I danced Puck in Ashton’s The Dream. Fred build the role on two of us, myself and Keith Martin, with Alexander Grant dancing Bottom. I was 20 at the time and everything seemed possible in a brilliantly coloured and exciting world. Fred was an enigma. He always had a profound knowledge of the music, but he never seemed to have a firm plan, apparently creating everything out of thin air without notes.’

Soon after this, David transferred to the Royal Ballet Touring Company, which became Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet and later Birmingham Royal Ballet.

In 1977 he choreographed the second of two ballets, Birdscape, which included in its cast a young David Bintley. Their roles were soon to be reversed when Bintley cast Morse in his own first professional ballet, The Outsider, the following year. It was to be the first of many roles in Bintley ballets, to include a memorable Henry Hobson in Hobson’s Choice and the Merchant in Beauty and the Beast.

His career with the Company in Birmingham was first as a Principal Character Artist and, from 1998, while continuing to dance many of his much-admired character roles, as the Company’s first Video Archivist.

Alongside many Bintley works, he was renowned for his performances in Peter Wright’s classic productions, such as Coppélius (Coppélia) and Carabosse (The Sleeping Beauty), and was greatly acclaimed across his career for performances in such wide ranging roles as Alain and Widow Simone (La Fille mal gardée), Lord Capulet (Romeo and Juliet), Kostcheï (The Firebird), the Dago (Façade), Eros (Sylvia), the Corregidor (Le Tricorne) and the title role in Lazarus.

David died peacefully at home on 28 January after a long illness, and is survived by his wife of 53 years, BRB’s former Principal dancer, Ballet Mistress and Assistant Director, Marion Tait.

David’s funeral will take place at Lodge Hill Crematorium, Selly Oak, Birmingham at 3.15pm on Wednesday 5 March. All are welcome.