Laurence Duval Gilliam,
OBE (4 March 1907 – 15 November 1964) was a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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radio producer
A radio producer oversees the making of a radio show. The job title covers several different job descriptions:
*Content producers or executive producers oversee and orchestrate a radio show or feature. The content producer might organize music choi ...
.
Gilliam worked with the
Gramophone Company
The Gramophone Company Limited (The Gramophone Co. Ltd.), based in the United Kingdom and founded by Emil Berliner, was one of the early recording companies, the parent organisation for the ''His Master's Voice (HMV)'' label, and the European ...
, before transferred to the BBC drama department in 1933, where he was responsible for
features
Feature may refer to:
Computing
* Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch
* Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob
* Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing characteristic of a software item ...
. At the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
he was appointed
OBE for his outstanding programmes.
Early life
Laurence Duval Gilliam was born on 4 March 1907 in
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
, London, the younger son of Ernest William Gilliam (d. 1943), a businessman, and his wife, Beatrice Bishop (d. 1946). He was educated at the
City of London School
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Boys' independent day school
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
, head = Alan Bird
, chair_label = Chair of Governors
, chair = Ian Seaton
, founder = John Carpenter
, speciali ...
(1918–25) and
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...
(1925–28).
Laurence Gilliam worked first with the Gramophone Company in various capacities, and later as a freelance journalist, actor, and producer, before joining the editorial staff of the ''
Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' in 1932.
BBC Features
Gilliam transferred to the BBC drama department in 1933, where he worked on the development of special feature programmes which wove sound, words, and music together to create an aural picture. From 1933 until the end of his life he was responsible for the world-wide Christmas Day programmes that preceded the monarch's address. These programmes were the BBC's technically most complicated assignment, linking the Commonwealth outposts with
Broadcasting House
Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The main ...
in London via elaborate world-wide link-ups. Another notable example of Gilliam's early technical ambition was ''′Opping 'Oliday''—a "sound picture" of hop picking in Kent—which he produced in 1934 using the newly established mobile recording van.
Val Gielgud
Val Henry Gielgud (28 April 1900 – 30 November 1981) was an English actor, writer, director and Television presenter, broadcaster. He was a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC, and also directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newe ...
, head of drama, transferred responsibility for features to Gilliam in May 1936, though features really came into their own during the Second World War.
In 1940 Gilliam married Marianne Helweg (1914–1976), a Dane whose father, Jacob Helweg, had immigrated to Britain in the 1920s to take up a lecturing position at the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
. The couple met at the BBC, where Marianne had been a plays reader. She and Laurence had three sons and one daughter. They lived in
Highgate, Middlesex, until the marriage was dissolved in 1952, when Marianne moved in with the Northern Irish poet
Bertie (W. R.) Rodgers, who worked for Gilliam.
Gilliam saw the possibilities for the medium of radio to reflect the reality of war. In his major topical series ''The Shadow of the Swastika'', which documented the rise of Nazism, Gilliam demonstrated the power of the factual documentary for propaganda purposes and offered the first challenging piece of work from the BBC since the outbreak of war. Gilliam had a natural sympathy for the journalistic approach to broadcasting, and his war work reflected these instincts. As one of the two editors (with Donald Boyd) of War Report, he helped to create a revolutionary technique on which all news reporting has since been based, taking the microphone to the fighting line to report back to the people at home nightly, in record time. In recognition of this outstanding war record, features became a separate department at the end of the war in 1945, with Laurence Gilliam as its head, and Gilliam himself was appointed
OBE.
Throughout the post-war period—the ‘golden age of radio’—Gilliam did more than anyone in the BBC to recruit and encourage poets and writers to contribute work for the BBC features department. He showed a gift for leadership which inspired devoted loyalty in a group of the most talented writers and producers in radio history, including
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...
,
Douglas Cleverdon
Thomas Douglas James Cleverdon (17 January 1903 – 1 October 1987) was an English radio producer and bookseller. In both fields he was associated with numerous leading cultural figures.
Personal life
He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and ...
,
Leonard Cottrell, Jennifer Wayne,
Christopher Sykes, W. R. Rodgers, Francis Dillon,
Nesta Pain
Florence Nesta Kathleen Pain (1905–1995, known as Nesta Pain, Taylor) was an English broadcaster and writer.
Early life and education
Nesta Taylor was born on 27 July 1905 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool. Her family had been prominent locally: her ...
,
Wynford Vaughan Thomas,
Alan Burgess
Alan Burgess (1 February 1915 – 10 April 1998) was an English Royal Air Force pilot and author who wrote several biographical and non-fiction books between the 1950s and the 1970s. He wrote biographies of Gladys Aylward, and Flora Sandes, and ...
, and
D. G. Bridson.
He maintained strongly that the feature was the one unique form that radio had achieved in its short history; and it was largely due to him that features came to stand for so much that was vital, contemporary, experimental, and above all ‘pure radio’. In his book ''BBC Features'', edited by Gilliam, published by
Evans Brothers
Evans Brothers Ltd (or Evans Brothers Limited) was a British publishing house that was part of the Evans Publishing Group UK. The firm first published teacher training materials and in later years broadened its catalogue, publishing children's bo ...
in 1950, Gilliam described a Feature Programme as "in broadcasting, the term has come to signify a wide range of programme items, usually factual and documentary, presented by a variety of techniques, but mostly making use of edited actuality. The essential quality of the feature programme is that it should be the expression of one mind, whatever technique it uses".
In the early 1960s Gilliam still maintained his faith in radio, but as the end of features department was being discussed, his health was deteriorating. Laurence Gilliam died of cancer of the kidneys on 15 November 1964 in
St Andrew's Hospital
St Andrews Hospital is a mental health facility in Northampton, England. It is managed by St Andrew's Healthcare.
History Formation
The facility was founded by public subscription for "private and pauper lunatics" and opened as the Northampton ...
,
Dollis Hill
Dollis Hill is an area in northwest London, which consists of the streets surrounding the 35 hectares (86 acres) Gladstone Park. It is served by a London Underground station, Dollis Hill, on the Jubilee line, providing good links to central Lon ...
, Middlesex, where he was convalescing after an operation.
Works
* ''B.B.C. Features''. London: Evans Bros., 1950.
* ''Harry Hopeful'', 1936; introduced by Frank Nicholls, produced by D.G.Bridson
* ''Christmas Day Programme'', 1934 to 1956; produced by Laurence Gilliam
* ''The Shadow of the Swastika'', 1939; produced by Laurence Gilliam,
Marius Goring
Marius Re Goring, (23 May 191230 September 1998) was a British stage and screen actor. He is best remembered for the four films he made with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in '' A Matter of Life and Death'' and as Julian Cr ...
as Hitler, written by
A. L. Lloyd
Albert Lancaster Lloyd (29 February 1908 – 29 September 1982),Eder, Bruce. (29 September 1982A. L. Lloyd - Music Biography, Credits and Discography AllMusic. Retrieved on 2013-02-24. usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English fo ...
,
Igor Vinogradoff, music by
Walter Goehr
Walter Goehr (; 28 May 19034 December 1960) was a German composer and conductor.
Biography
Goehr was born in Berlin, where he studied with Arnold Schoenberg and embarked on a conducting career, before being forced as a Jew to seek employment outsi ...
* ''Junction X'', 1944; written & produced
Cecil McGivern
Cecil McGivern CBE (22 May 1907, in Newcastle, England – 30 January 1963, in Buckinghamshire, England) was a British broadcasting executive, who initially worked for BBC Radio before transferring to BBC Television in the late 1940s. From 1950 ...
, music by Walter Goehr
* ''The Dark Tower'', 1945; written and produced by Louis MacNeice, music by
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
* ''Irish Literary Portraits'', 1948 to 1965; produced by W. R. Rodgers
* ''
Under Milk Wood
''Under Milk Wood'' is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, commissioned by the BBC and later adapted for the stage. A film version, ''Under Milk Wood'' directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released in 1972, and another adaptation of ...
'', 1954; by
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...
, produced by Douglas Cleveland, performed by
Richard Burton
Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...
, music by Daniel Jones
* ''Flies So Called''; 1958; written and produced by
Nesta Pain
Florence Nesta Kathleen Pain (1905–1995, known as Nesta Pain, Taylor) was an English broadcaster and writer.
Early life and education
Nesta Taylor was born on 27 July 1905 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool. Her family had been prominent locally: her ...
, music by Antony Hopkins
* ''The Way We Live Now''; 1962, introduced by
Rene Cutforth, produced by Francis Dillon
* ''One Eye Wild'', 1961; written and produced by Louis MacNeice
* ''The Big Hewer'', 1961; by
Ewan MacColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
and
Peggy Seeger
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American Folk music, folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
First American period
Seeg ...
, produced by Charles Parker
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilliam, Laurence
BBC radio producers
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
1907 births
1964 deaths