Don Taylor (English director and playwright)

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Donald Victor Taylor (30 June 1936 – 11 November 2003) was an English writer, director and producer, active across theatre,

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

and television for over forty years. He is most noted for his television work, particularly his early 1960s collaborations with the playwright David Mercer, much of whose early work Taylor directed for the

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The BBC

Born in

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary. An Civil parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish and latterly a ...

in London, Taylor attended Chiswick Grammar School and subsequently studied

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located at Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after ...

. While at university he became actively involved in student theatre, particularly with the

Experimental Theatre Club __NOTOC__ :''This club should not be confused with the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club of New York.'' The Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) is a student dramatic society at the University of Oxford, England. It was founded in 1936 by Nevill Coghil ...

. It was for the club that Taylor directed, in 1957, the world premiere of ''

Epitaph for George Dillon ''Epitaph for George Dillon'' is an early John Osborne Play (theatre), play, one of two he wrote in collaboration with Anthony Creighton (the other is ''Personal Enemy''). It was written before ''Look Back in Anger'', the play which made Osbor ...

'' by the acclaimed playwright

John Osborne John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his prose that criticized established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play ''Look Back in Anger'' tra ...

. After graduating, he joined the

...
as a general trainee in 1960, quickly becoming a television director in the drama department. His first directing work was an episode of the crime series ''Scotland Yard'', but he rapidly became more associated with directing single plays. His association with David Mercer began in 1961 with '' Where the Difference Begins'', the first instalment in what became the "Generations" trilogy, the subsequent instalments of which – ''

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'' (1962) and ''

Birth of a Private Man Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...

'' (1963) – were also directed by Taylor. He also directed Mercer's ''Sunday Night Play'' episode ''

A Suitable Case for Treatment A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

'' (1962), which explored the writer's experiences of his own

nervous breakdown A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

. Taylor was greatly displeased by the arrival in December 1962 of the Canadian producer

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 ...

as the new Head of Drama at the BBC. He regarded Newman as an uncultured populist with no theatrical knowledge or background; Taylor himself felt that the BBC should be the " National Theatre of the Air". He also disliked Newman's restructuring of the drama department, one of the features of which was the abolition of the BBC's traditional single producer/director role and the division of responsibilities of producing and directing to separate posts. Newman attempted to work with Taylor and offered him the producer's role on a series the Canadian himself had initiated – an educational science-fiction serial for children entitled ''

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 u ...

''. Taylor had no interest in the series. Taylor remained with the BBC for a time, but was not a staff member and left in 1964 on the expiration of his contract. Although he did return as a freelancer to direct two episodes of ''

The Wednesday Play ''The Wednesday Play'' is an anthology series of United Kingdom, British television plays which ran on BBC One, BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramati ...

'' in 1965 – including a further Mercer play, '' And Did Those Feet?'' – he later claimed to have been "blacklisted" from working in the BBC's drama department for the remainder of the decade, and there is a deal of evidence to show that this was the case. Taylor himself quoted

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as confirming this to Ellen Dryden in his memoir ''Days of Vision''.

Later career

He was, however, able to find work with other departments of the BBC, directing several episodes of the arts documentary series '' Omnibus''. He also began to find success as a playwright himself, for the theatre, with his first professional play ''Grounds for Marriage'' being premiered by the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco. The Traverse Theatre company commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary pla ...

in 1967. From the early 1970s, he also began to work for BBC television drama again directing versions of his own plays ''

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'' in 1972, and ''

The Roses of Eyam ''The Roses of Eyam'' is a historical drama by Don Taylor about The Great Plague that swept Britain in 1665/66. It is largely based on the events that happened in the 'Plague Village' of Eyam in Derbyshire, between September 1665 and Decembe ...

'' the following year. He also worked in television for the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

network, including two episodes of

Nigel Kneale Thomas Nigel Kneale (28 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter who wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British S ...

's ATV anthology horror series ''

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'' in 1976. He went on to direct mostly classic theatrical adaptations for the BBC, including ''

The Two Gentlemen of Verona ''The Two Gentlemen of Verona'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1589 and 1593. It is considered by some to be Shakespeare's first play, and is often seen as showing his first tentative steps in laying ...

'' in 1984 for their '' The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare'' series, which adapted all of Shakespeare's plays for the small screen. In 1986 he directed ''

Oedipus Rex ''Oedipus Rex'', also known by its Greek title, ''Oedipus Tyrannus'' ( grc, Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, ), or ''Oedipus the King'', is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. Originally, to the ancient Gr ...

'' (Oedipus the King). His final television work was his own new translation of ''

Iphigenia at Aulis ''Iphigenia in Aulis'' or ''Iphigenia at Aulis'' ( grc, Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Αὐλίδι, Īphigéneia en Aulídi; variously translated, including the Latin ''Iphigenia in Aulide'') is the last of the extant works by the playwright Euripide ...

'' by

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...

in 1990, after which he retired from the medium. That same year he published a memoir of his television work, ''Days of Vision'', in which he was scathing of the state of modern television drama and the disappearance of the theatrical tradition from the medium. For the remainder of his career, Taylor was particularly active in radio and the theatre. The same year that he retired from television work, he and his wife established a radio production company called First Writes, producing plays independently for transmission on

BBC radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...

. He both wrote and directed for radio himself, as well as working alongside his wife in the running of a youth theatre company they had established near their Chiswick home. He wrote a number of plays for the company, including "Daughters of Venice". Later in life, the family moved to the village of Banham, near

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, where Taylor died in 2003. He had married the writer

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in 1960 – she and their two children survived him. Less than a year after his death,

Katie Mitchell Katrina Jane Mitchell (born 23 September 1964) is an English theatre director. Life and career Mitchell was born in Reading, Berkshire, raised in Hermitage, Berkshire, and educated at Oakham School. Upon leaving Oakham, she went up to Mag ...

directed a production of his translation of ''Iphigenia at Aulis'' at the Lyttelton, to huge critical acclaim. The "National Theatre of the Air" had not come to pass, but finally his work was played at the National Theatre. This was followed in 2007 by the same director's production of his translation of ''Women of Troy'', and in 2012 by Polly Findlay's production of his 'Antigone', with Christopher Eccleston and Jodie Whittaker.

References

*Purser, Philip. ''Obituary: Don Taylor'' (subscription link). "

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

". Thursday 20 November 2003. *Hayward, Anthony. ''Don Taylor: Exponent of live television and theatre''. "

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

". Saturday 22 November 2003.

External links

*
Overview of Taylor's radio work at the suttonelms drama siteFull biography at British Television drama
by Oliver Wake. 15 April 2010. Accessed June 2010

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Don BBC Radio drama directors English television directors Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford 1936 births 2003 deaths People from Marylebone English male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English male writers People from Breckland District