Charles St John Wallace Furneaux [1] (born 1957) is a British television producer and documentary maker. He began his career as an assistant producer with the BBC, becoming a commissioning editor at Channel 4 in 1994. Furneaux then went to Talkback Thames in 2003 as Head of Specialist Factual and Documentaries resigning in 2007 to manage his own production company, Kaboom Film & TV. [2]
Award-winning productions of Furneaux include The Natural History of the Chicken, which won an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Science and Nature Programming-Long Form in 2002. [3] Touching the Void won BAFTA's 2004 Alexander Korda award for the outstanding British film of the year. [4] [5] The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall , in 2009, won two BAFTA Awards and one Monte Carlo Golden Nymph Award, and the documentary Treblinka: Inside Hitler's Secret Death Camp won a Cine Golden Eagle Award in the History category of the Televised Documentary & Performance Division in 2014. [6] [7] Furneaux also produced Diana: In Her Own Words , which broadcast on 6 August 2017 and became Channel 4's "most-watched documentary since 2014", peaking with 4.1 million viewers. [8] [ third-party source needed ]
Furneaux read modern history at Durham University (University College), graduating with a 2:1 degree in 1978. [1]
Furneaux is a former participant in the Up series, an ongoing documentary series which follows the lives of fourteen British citizens in seven-year intervals, beginning when they were seven years old in 1964. Furneaux declined to participate in the series after the 21 Up episode, broadcast in 1977. [9] [10] After Charles declined to appear in 28 Up, during a subsequent phone conversation, director Michael Apted, by his own admission, "went berserk", which destroyed the relationship to the degree that Charles has refused to participate in all subsequent films. [11] Allison Pearson, writing for The Telegraph , reports that Apted alleged Furneaux had filed a lawsuit aimed at "remov[ing] Charles' likeness from the archive sequences in 49 Up". [10]
Furneaux has also participated in one of the original television series in which a viewer was encouraged to voice their opinions regarding current television programmes, Right to Reply , in 1998. [12]
 | This section needs expansionwith: a complete list of the title subject's production credits, e.g., as presented by the BFI (see further reading). You can help by adding to it. (December 2019) |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Treblinka: Inside Hitler's Secret Death Camp | Executive Producer | Television documentary, directed by Alex Nikolic-Dunlop. [13] [14] |
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It all began in 1964 with Seven Up!, a one-off edition of Granada Television's World in Action, which was directed by a Canadian, Paul Almond, but shaped by a fresh-faced young researcher, a middle-class Cambridge graduate called Michael Apted. / "It was Paul's film", says Apted now, "but he was more interested in making a beautiful film about being seven, whereas I wanted to make a nasty piece of work about these kids who have it all, and these other kids who have nothing." / A pause. [Michael Apted continues.] "But maybe I'm deluding myself. They might think, 'Oh good, someone new. We're fed up with grumpy old Michael.'" / Certainly, the relationship has had its ups and downs. Several of the original 14 have withdrawn from one or more of the films and one, Charles Furneaux, opted out completely after 21 Up. "He's now a documentary film-maker himself [he was executive producer of Touching the Void], which I find particularly hard to swallow", says Apted. / "He actually tried to get himself removed from the earlier films, too, but he's integral to the famous 'posh boys three' shot [the prep school boys interviewed together in Seven Up!] and Granada told him to take a flying jump.
[Pearson, writing about Apted, but not quoting him.] For me, most telling of all is that Charles Furneaux, one of the three Kensington prep-school boys, has refused to take part since 21 Up. When Charles grew up, he became, guess what? A TV producer. In 2005, Apted revealed that Furneaux had attempted to sue him when he refused to remove Charles' likeness from the archive sequences in 49 Up. [Pearson continues, editorialising.] What does it tell us when a man who has made his fortune in TV refuses to put his own life on the line for the medium's greatest monument? That working-class people are fodder for posh producers, who jealously guard their own privacy?