Happenings

Happy New Year – Updates

I trust that 2017 will be a good year for you all.

I’ve just made some additions to Obituaries – names many of you will remember working with in the past.

Jeremy Summers (thanks to Ian Williams for pointing me to the Guardian page), Rodney Bennett (whose obit I found on a Dr Who Fan page) and Claude Whatham (I was prompted to look him up having just watched the new “Swallows & Amazons” – he directed the 1974 version – and in the process I discovered he had died in 2008).

These are all people we “older” Oldboys worked with – it’s nice to discover what else they did in the past.

CB

Philip Saville RIP

Many of you will know or have worked with Philip Saville who died on December 22nd.  While I wait for a full obituary, here is an excerpt from his Wikipedia entry.

Saville began his working life as an actor. During the 1960s he directed television plays, such as Harold Pinter’s A Night Out (1960) for ABC’s Armchair Theatre anthology series. He directed over 40 plays for Armchair Theatre and helped pioneer the innovative visual style it became known for, including rapid and intricate camera movements during the often live productions.^[1] He also directed Madhouse on Castle Street (1963) for the BBC. The (now lost) production was the first acting appearance of the folk singer Bob Dylan, whom Saville had flown over specifically to take part in the play. Saville’s production of Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) for the BBC pioneered the use of videotape for location recording.^[1]

Other significant programmes on which Saville worked include Out of the Unknown (1965) and the Boys from the Blackstuff (1982) for which Saville received a BAFTA to add to his earlier BAFTA for Hamlet at Elsinore, and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986).