Michael Bakewell (born

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

) is a British

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of video production on a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television net ...

. Bakewell was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire in England. He is best known for his work during the 1960s, when he was the first Head of Plays at the BBC, after

Sydney Newman Sydney Cecil Newman (April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, Newman w ...

divided the drama department into separate series, serials and plays divisions in 1963. Later, he produced plays for

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

's ''

Theatre 625 ''Theatre 625'' is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and ...

'' anthology strand, including John Hopkins' highly regarded ''

Talking to a Stranger ''Talking to a Stranger'' (1966) is a British television drama, written by John Hopkins for the BBC, which consists of four separate plays recounting the events of one weekend from the viewpoints of four members of the same family. The play cycl ...

'' quartet of linked plays. He has also worked in

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

, including adapting ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'' into a 1981 radio series for the BBC and a series of 27 adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories broadcast between 1985 and 2007 by BBC Radio 4. He was also the dubbing director for the English versions of the Japanese television series ''

The Water Margin ''Water Margin'' (''Shuihu zhuan'') is one of the earliest Chinese novels written in vernacular Mandarin, and is attributed to Shi Nai'an. It is also translated as ''Outlaws of the Marsh'' and ''All Men Are Brothers''. The story, which is s ...

'' and ''

Monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

'', which were screened by the BBC, among many of Manga Video UK's dubs (and many dubs for both

Central Park Media Central Park Media, often abbreviated as CPM, was an American multimedia entertainment company based in New York City, New York and was headquartered in the 250 West 57th Street building in Midtown Manhattan (on the corner of Central Park, hence ...

and Manga Video UK), e.g., '' Cyber City Oedo'', ''

Devilman is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai. The manga focuses on a high school student named Akira Fudo who absorbs the powers of the demon called "Amon" with help of his friend Ryo Asuka in order to battle ...

'', ''

Dominion Tank Police is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. Set in the fictional city of Newport, Japan, in a future in which bacteria as well as air pollution have become so severe that people must wear gas masks when outdoors, th ...

'', ''

Patlabor , also known as ''Patlabor'' (a portmanteau of "patrol" and "labor"), is a Japanese science fiction media franchise created by Headgear, a group consisting of manga artist Masami Yūki, director Mamoru Oshii, screenwriter Kazunori It� ...

'' (Manga PAL version - movies 1 and 2), ''

Tokyo Babylon , also known as ''Tokyo Babylon: A Save Tokyo City Story'', is a Japanese manga series created by mangaka group Clamp. The series follows Subaru Sumeragi, the head of the Sumeragi clan, and his sister Hokuto, as they work to protect Tokyo ...

'', ''

Genocyber is a 1992 Japanese manga series by Tony Takezaki. One volume of the manga was published, and the story remains unfinished. It was adapted by Koichi Ohata into a five-part original video animation (OVA) series in 1994. The plot of the anime d ...

'', ''

Roujin Z is a 1991 Japanese animated science fiction action thriller film directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo and written by Katsuhiro Otomo. The animation for ''Roujin Z'' was produced by A.P.P.P. in association with other companies including Movic, Sony Mus ...

'', ''

Angel Cop is a six-part original video animation created and directed by Ichirō Itano. A manga adaptation written and illustrated by Taku Kitazaki was serialized in '' Newtype'' in 1989 and collected into a ''Newtype 100%'' collection released in Apri ...

'', ''

Violence Jack is a Japanese manga, co-written and co-illustrated by Go Nagai since 1973, all the way to 2008. It has had several serializations and one-shot stories which have run in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Most of the stories have been ...

'' and many others. From 1955 until 1972, he was the first husband of

Joan Bakewell Joan Dawson Bakewell, Baroness Bakewell, ('' née'' Rowlands; born 16 April 1933), is an English journalist, television presenter and Labour Party peer. Baroness Bakewell is president of Birkbeck, University of London; she is also an auth ...

; the couple had two children, Matthew and Harriet. In the 1960s, Joan had an eight-year affair with the playwright

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanne ...

. Following their divorce, Michael remarried to Melissa Dundas in 1975. The couple live in East Sussex.

References

External links

*
Michael Bakewell's radio plays
1931 births Living people BBC television producers British television producers British voice directors Spouses of life peers {{UK-tv-bio-stub