British theatre director John Barton, a co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), has died aged 89.

The RSC's current artistic director Gregory Doran confirmed the news today, praising Barton as "both a great director and teacher, and simply one of the greatest influences in the acting of Shakespeare of the last century".

Barton's most acclaimed productions included Aphra Behn's The Rover in 1986 with Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack, a 1969 Twelfth Night with Judi Dench, and the epic Wars of the Roses in 1963, a collaboration with his RSC co-founder Peter Hall which brought together four of Shakespeare's history plays into a single monumental show. Barton wrote 1,400 lines of new verse for the production, which were woven into Shakespeare's dialogue.

He became a familiar face in 1982 with the broadcast of Playing Shakespeare on ITV's London Weekend Television, a nine-part series Barton co-presented with Trevor Nunn, which featured some of the most prominent actors of the day, including Ian McKellen, David Suchet and Patrick Stewart.

Stewart, writing on Twitter, said: "It is with great sadness I have heard today of John B's death. But the sadness is overwhelmed by the gratitude, respect and love I had/have for him. No one in my career had the impact that John had and the names William Shakespeare and John Barton will be for me forever united."