Jonathan Powell (producer)
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Jonathan Powell (producer)
Jonathan Leslie Powell (born 25 April 1947 in Sittingbourne, Kent) is an English former television producer and executive. His senior positions in television included serving as the Head of BBC Drama Series and Serials and Controller of BBC1. He later became a professor and head of department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Biography Powell was educated at Sherborne School and the University of East Anglia where he studied English literature. In 1968, he began working in television drama, producing programmes such as ''Crown Court''. Working for the BBC, he produced several drama series during the 1970s and 1980s, including literary adaptations such as ''A Christmas Carol'' (1977), ''Wuthering Heights'' (1978), ''Testament of Youth'' (1979), ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1980), ''The Barchester Chronicles'' (1982) and ''The Old Men at the Zoo'' (1983). He was also the producer of ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1979) and its sequel ''Smiley's People'' (1982), bo ...
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Sittingbourne
Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey. The town became prominent after the death of Thomas Becket in 1170, since it provided a convenient resting point on the road from London to Canterbury and Dover. Chatham Main Line links to London Victoria and HS1 to St Pancras International, the journey taking about an hour from Sittingbourne railway station. History Sittingbourne owes its name to a modernised version of an observation on its location. The town's name came from the fact that there is a small stream or "bourne" running underground in part of the town. Hasted writing in the 1790s in his ''History of Kent'' states that: The Kent Hundred Rolls of 1274–5, preserved in the National Archives, record Sittingbourne as Sydingeburn ...
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Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing comedies, including ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1949), in which he played nine different characters, ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' (1951), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, and '' The Ladykillers'' (1955). He collaborated six times with director David Lean: Herbert Pocket in '' Great Expectations'' (1946), Fagin in '' Oliver Twist'' (1948), Col. Nicholson in ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' (1957), for which he won both the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, Prince Faisal in ''Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962), General Yevgraf Zhivago in ''Doctor Zhivago'' (1965), and Professor Godbole in ''A Passage to India'' (1984). In 1970 he played Jacob Marley's ghost in Ronald Neame's '' Scrooge''. He also portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas's origi ...
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Peter Cregeen
Peter Cregeen (born 28 January 1940 in London, England) is a British television director, producer and executive. He was the original director of ITV's successful police drama, ''The Bill'', and made a substantial contribution to the series thereafter. He also served as Head of Series for BBC television drama between 1989 and 1993, which included cancelling ''Doctor Who'' after its 26th season and several years of poor viewing figures. Career Cregeen began directing for television in the 1960s and producing in the 1970s. During the 1960s, 70s, and 80s he worked on numerous popular television series, including: ''The Troubleshooters'' (1965); ''King of the River'' (1966); ''Out of the Unknown'' (1969; 1971); ''The Onedin Line'' (1971; 1976); ''The Sandbaggers'' (1978); ''Colditz'' (1972; 1974) and ''Wings'' (1977–1978). Cregeen has worked on various police dramas, including: ''The Gentle Touch'' (1980); '' The Expert'' (1969); '' Softly Softly'' (1969–1972); ''Z-Cars'' (1 ...
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Matthew Sweet (writer)
Matthew Sweet (born 2 December 1969) is an English journalist, broadcaster, author, and Cultural history, cultural historian. A graduate of the University of Oxford, he has been interviewed on many documentaries about television for the BBC and Channel 4. Early life Born in Kingston upon Hull, Hull, Sweet received a doctorate from University of Oxford, Oxford on Wilkie Collins. Career Sweet was among the contributors to ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'' and was both film and television critic for ''The Independent on Sunday''. Sweet's book, ''Shepperton Studios, Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema'' (2005) is a history of the British film business from the silent days, and includes interviews with surviving figures from the period. A television Documentary film, documentary series was adapted from the book. Sweet has written other television films and series, including ''Silent Britain'', ''Checking into History'', ''British Film Forever'', ''The ...
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John Nathan-Turner
John Nathan-Turner (''né'' Turner; 12 August 1947 – 1 May 2002) was an English television producer. He was the ninth producer of the long-running BBC science fiction series ''Doctor Who''. He was also the final producer of the series' first run on television (from 1980 until it was cancelled in 1989). He finished the role having become the longest-serving ''Doctor Who'' producer and cast Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy as the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, respectively.BBC (3 May 2002Doctor Who producer diesBBC. Retrieved 15 August 2008. Early life Born John Turner in Birmingham, he adopted the double-barrelled stage name ''John Nathan-Turner'' to distinguish himself from the British actor John Turner. He was educated at King Edward VI School, at Aston in Birmingham, where he showed an early interest in acting and theatre. His earliest television acting work was as an extra in TV productions for ITV, including ''Crossroads'' and ''The Flying Swan''. Bot ...
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Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. The TARDIS exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. With various companions, the Doctor combats foes, works to save civilisations, and helps people in need. Beginning with William Hartnell, thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; in 2017, Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to officially play the role on television. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each acto ...
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Michael Grade
Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, (born 8 March 1943) is an English television executive and businessman. He has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1 (1984–1986), chief executive of Channel 4 (1988–1997), Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC (2004–2006), and executive chairman of ITV plc (2007–2009). Since 2011, he has been a Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords. In April 2022, it was announced by the Government that Grade would take up his four year appointment as Chairman of Ofcom from May 2022 and would move to the crossbenches in the House of Lords at the earliest practical opportunity. Early life Grade was born into a Jewish show business family originally called Winogradsky; his father was the theatrical agent Leslie Grade and his uncles were the impresarios Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont. When he was three years old his mother Lynn Smith left the family to conduct a relationship with wrestlin ...
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Casualty (TV Series)
''Casualty'' (stylised as ''CASUAL+Y'') is a British medical drama series that airs weekly on BBC One. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 6 September 1986. The original producer was Geraint Morris. Having been broadcast weekly since 1986, ''Casualty'' is the longest-running primetime medical drama series in the world. The programme is set in the fictional Holby City Hospital and focuses on the staff and patients of the hospital's Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department. The show has strong ties to its sister programme '' Holby City'', which began as a spin-off series from ''Casualty'' in 1999, set in the same hospital. The final episode of ''Holby City'' was broadcast in March 2022. ''Casualty''s exterior shots were mainly filmed outside the Ashley Down Centre in Bristol from 1986 until 2002, when they moved to the centre of Bristol. In 2011, ''Casualty'' celebrated its 25th anniversary and moved production to t ...
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Howards' Way
''Howards' Way'' is a television drama series produced by BBC Birmingham and transmitted on BBC1 between 1 September 1985 and 25 November 1990. The series deals with the personal and professional lives of the wealthy yachting and business communities in the fictional town of Tarrant on the south coast of England, and was filmed on the River Hamble and the Solent. Most of the location filming for the series was carried out in Bursledon, Hamble, Swanwick, Warsash, Hill Head, Lee-on-the-Solent, Lymington, Hythe, Southampton and Fareham—all in Hampshire. The Jolly Sailor pub in Bursledon featured in several episodes. History ''Howards' Way'' was created and produced by Gerard Glaister and Allan Prior, with lead writer Raymond Thompson as story and script consultant—at a point in the BBC's history when the organisation was making a concerted populist strike against ITV in its approach to programming. The series debuted on BBC1 in 1985, the same year that the BBC launched its ...
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EastEnders
''EastEnders'' is a Television in the United Kingdom, British soap opera created by Julia Smith (producer), Julia Smith and Tony Holland which has been broadcast on BBC One since February 1985. Set in the fictional borough of Walford in the East End of London, the programme follows the stories of local residents and their families as they go about their daily lives. Within eight months of the show's original launch, it had reached the number one spot in Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, BARB's television ratings and has consistently remained among the top-rated series in Britain. Four ''EastEnders'' episodes are listed in the all-time top 10 List of most watched television broadcasts in the United Kingdom#Most watched programmes, most-watched programmes in the UK, including the number one spot when over 30 million watched the 1986 Christmas Day episode. ''EastEnders'' has been EastEnders in popular culture, important in the history of British television drama, tackling many ...
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Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers.Bowles, p. 118. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns. BBC Radio's ''The Archers'', first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera. The longest-running current television soap is '' Coronation Street'', which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960, with the record for the longest running soap opera in history being held by '' Guiding Light'', which began on radio in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952, and ended in 2009. A crucial element that defines the soap opera is the open-ended serial nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. One of the defining features that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Alber ...
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Videotape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram. Because video signals have a very high bandwidth, and stationary heads would require extremely high tape speeds, in most cases, a helical-scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions. Tape is a linear method of storing information and thus imposes delays to access a portion of the tape that is not already against the heads. The early 2000s saw the introduction and rise to prominence of high-quality random-access video recording media such as hard disks and flash memory. Since then, videotape has been increasingly relegated to archival and si ...
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