“Barbara began her extraordinary 70-year career, in Stratford-upon-Avon, after graduating from RADA, in the role of Isabella in Peter Brook’s production of Measure for Measure with John Gielgud as Angelo. Her last appearance here was The Countess in All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Peter Hall in the Swan Theatre in 1992.

“In the intervening years she played virtually every leading female role in the canon, from Desdemona, Kate, Rosalind, to Mrs Quickly and Volumnia in Terry Hands production of Coriolanus with Charles Dance in 1989. Undoubtedly one of the greatest classical actors of the century, with a remarkable command of the musicality of Shakespeare’s language, and a formidable presence on stage.”