Remembering the stage titan Giles Havergal, my cousin

Also this week: bashing pans for Palestine and parties at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Giles Havergal died in August aged 87. Photo by Alan Wylie/Alamy

My cousin Giles Havergal, a gentle giant of the theatre world, died last month at the age of 87. It was the kind of curtain call – sudden, swift, surrounded by loved ones – that we might all aspire to, and yet still, of course, a devastation, a lament for all the stories that we had only scratched the surface of. Giles’s directorship of Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre, from 1969 to 2003, revitalised not just the Citz but the city, audiences of all generations thrilled and appalled by high-camp Hamlets and daring Don Juans at 50p a ticket.

I was so lucky to grow up with Giles in my family, blessing our Christmases with his elegance and charm and randomly capitalised emails, and showing SUCH generous interest in our own theatrical DASHES. In July, my sister Georgia and I hosted a party for him at the Clapham Omnibus: a mixture of birthday drinks and career retrospective, bookended by Giles’s monologues from Chinchilla and his Olivier-winning Travels with My Aunt, performed with a verve that made us think a whole new final chapter might just be beginning. The post-renovation Citizens was due to open a few weeks later: might the great director tread its boards once more?

This mortal coil

On 23 August, the day of the reopening, I was 50 miles east at the Edinburgh Fringe, spreading myself thrillingly thin between orange-suited stand-up, al-fresco pan-bashing and a new theatre monologue of my own, inspired and guided by Giles during the months we’d spent preparing his party. That Saturday, I emerged from the latter to a phone call from my dad. It was one of those “are you sitting down” calls, the kind that means two stars in the Times, or something even worse. No more Giles. No final chapter. Mere weeks after his last performance, almost the very hour his beloved Citz reopened. Outrageous fortune. I’m so pleased we celebrated him when we did. Seek out his obituaries if you can, then ring your own heroes and hoover up their stories. Don’t leave your memorials to the memorial.

Keep on dancing

The last weekend of the Fringe is always a whirligig of emotion and exhaustion, and this was a plate-spinning personal best. First, the sledgehammer of that phone call; weeping in the Pleasance Courtyard, my friend the Advocate shielding me from an Avalon street team who were doing their merciless best to flyer me, even through the tears. We then laid down five hours of cathartic bangers at our “Comedians’ DJ Battles” club night, the indomitable powerhouses of Alison Spittle and Sikisa shaking the Cowgate to “Pink Pony Club” and “Not Like Us” in between shout-outs for Mo Chara and the Swindon Oasis. Mourning glory at La Belle Angele: we knew we should, so we guessed we might as well.

Not in my name

Not enough sleep later, we were climbing Calton Hill in glorious sunshine, to bash our pans one final time with Fringe Artists for Palestine. It was a daily communion of solidarity that helped us feel a bit less alone in the unending insanity of the genocide in Gaza, and connected us to performers in Portobello and legends in Leith who’d been fighting the good fight far longer than we had. Watching local choir Protest in Harmony singing “The Children Are Always Ours” on the Meadows was a Fringe moment I’ll never forget: stillness amid the horror, and gratitude to this octogenarian justice league in criminal T-shirts, putting not just their voices but their freedoms on the line for Palestine.

That evening, I watched Josie Long, another adopted Glaswegian who I’m so proud to call a comrade, perform a raucous and ridiculous hour about protest, parenting and prehistoric megafauna. It was my favourite show of the Fringe, just as the circus ground to a halt once more.

Together we’re glowing

Then home, to see my own daughter, who isn’t as into giant ground sloths as Josie’s is, but still delights me every day with the spinning jukebox of her six-year-old mind. I told her about Giles, whom she met (and drew) several times, and she paused on the thudding reality of it, before a swift, pragmatic return to her own agenda: The Zebra’s Great Escape by Katherine Rundell, the song “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters, and when we were next going to go to Giffords Circus.

I want to fight for a lot of futures this autumn, including and especially hers. Now is the time of monsters, and we owe our children as much energy and creativity and humanity as we can. She started Year 2 this week. It’s all happening so fast.

Ivo Graham is a comedian and writer. His show “Orange Crush” tours from this month. His book “Yardsticks For Failure” is out now; ivograham.com