Denys Blakeway

Last updated

Denys Blakeway is a British television producer and author who is best known for documentaries and books about contemporary history.

In 1994, he set up Blakeway Productions, a television company based in London. [1] Before establishing himself as an independent producer, Blakeway wrote and directed a number of documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4, including Primo Levi: The Memory of the Offence, [2] The Falklands War ; [3] and Thatcher - The Downing Street Years. [4] He has also been responsible for several documentaries about former British prime ministers, all made with their participation: Edward Heath, [5] John Major [6] and Tony Blair [7]

Since setting up Blakeway Productions, Blakeway has produced numerous programmes for British radio and television, including many documentaries about the British royal family, the Second World War, several series with historians Christopher Clark, Max Hastings, Niall Ferguson and David Reynolds, and arts programmes with artist and critic Matt Collings. In 2004, Blakeway Productions was acquired by the Ten Alps plc media group.

Latter television productions include a number of programmes about the causes of the First World War, including The Necessary War, written and presented by Max Hastings , which argued that the British were right to enter the conflict against Germany, and Royal Cousins at War, which told the story of the tensions between the royal houses of Europe in the years leading up to the war, both for BBC 2. [8]

Past productions include profiles of King George V and Queen Mary for BBC 2, George and Mary: The Royals who Rescued the Monarchy" [9] and an award-winning ninety-minute programme about the artist Lucian Freud, Lucian Freud: Painted Life, also for BBC 2. [10] A three-part series about Queen Victoria's fraught relations with her children was broadcast on BBC2 in January 2013, [11] and Blakeway was responsible for the BBC's 90 minute official obituary of Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister, which was transmitted on BBC1 [12] on the day that her death was announced. The obituary was subsequently shown by television stations around the world. [13]

Blakeway made a 2012 video, The Plot to Topple a King, about the abdication of Edward VIII, in which Blakeway attributes the abdication to the machinations of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang.[ citation needed ]

Blakeway is the author of The Last Dance, [14] an account of the turbulent year of 1936,The Falklands War [15] and Fields of Thunder-Testing Britain's Bomb [16] .

Blakeway has also written and presented numerous programmes for BBC Radio 4, including the Peabody award-winning The Unspeakable Atrocity, a documentary about the BBC and the Holocaust, produced by Nigel Acheson, and Remembrance, an archive based documentary about changing attitudes to remembering British war dead. [17] In May 2013, Blakeway presented The Longest Suicide Note in History, a documentary about the Labour Party's disastrous 1983 general election campaign. [18]

Related Research Articles

Valerie Singleton is an English television and radio presenter best known as a regular presenter of the popular children's series Blue Peter from 1962 to 1972. She also presented the BBC Radio 4 PM programme for ten years as well as a series of radio and television programmes on financial and business issues including BBC's The Money Programme from 1980 to 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Television</span> Television service of the British Broadcasting Corporation

BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emma Freud</span> English broadcaster

Emma Vallencey Freud is an English broadcaster and cultural commentator.

This is a timeline of the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Dimbleby</span> British television presenter and journalist (born 1944)

Jonathan Dimbleby is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, author and historian. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of television presenter David Dimbleby.

Laurence Rees is an English historian. He is a BAFTA winning historical documentary filmmaker and a British Book Award winning author of several books about Adolf Hitler, the Nazis and the atrocities committed, especially by them, during the 20th century. He is the former Head of BBC TV History Programmes.

<i>The Falklands Play</i> 2002 British television play

The Falklands Play is a dramatic account of the political events leading up to, and including, the 1982 Falklands War. The play was written by Ian Curteis, an experienced writer who had started his television career in drama, but had increasingly come to specialise in dramatic reconstructions of history. It was originally commissioned by the BBC in 1983, for production and broadcast in 1986, but was subsequently shelved by Controller of BBC One Michael Grade due to its pro-Margaret Thatcher stance and alleged jingoistic tone. This prompted a press furore over media bias and censorship. The play was not staged until 2002, when it was broadcast in separate adaptations on BBC Television and Radio. It was aired again on BBC4, 1 December 2020, over 18 years after it was last transmitted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Marlow</span> English writer and art historian

Timothy John Marlow is a British writer, broadcaster and art historian who is the Director and Chief Executive of the Design Museum, London. Prior to this role, he was the Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He has lectured on art and culture in over 40 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Honeyborne</span>

James Honeyborne is the creative director of Freeborne Media, he previously worked as an executive producer at the BBC Natural History Unit where he oversaw some 35 films, working with multiple co-producers around the world. His projects include the Emmy Award and BAFTA-winning series Blue Planet II, the Emmy Award-nominated series Wild New Zealand with National Geographic, and the BAFTA-winning BBC1 series Big Blue Live with PBS.

This is a list of British television related events from 1991.

This is a list of British television related events from 1990.

This is a list of British television related events from 1989.

This is a list of British television related events from 1988.

This is a list of British television related events from 1985.

This is a list of British television related events from 1979.

This is a list of British television related events from 1978.

This is a list of British television related events from 1965.

BBC Schools, also known as BBC for Schools and Colleges or BBC Education, is the educational programming strand set up by the BBC in 1957, broadcasting a range of educational programmes for children aged 5–16. From launch until June 1983, programming was based on BBC1 during the daytime, apart from coverage of major news events which saw the programmes shifted to BBC2. In September 1983, programming was transferred permanently to BBC2 freeing BBC1 to develop its own daytime schedule. The strand, named Daytime on Two, remained on BBC Two until March 2010, later supplemented by the 'Class TV' strand on CBBC.

Elizabeth Bonner Allen, is a British documentary film maker. Examples of her work are the TV programs Waste, Parking Mad, 15 Stone Babies, Inside John Lewis, and Silverville. Her work has appeared on the BBC, Channel Four, ITV, UKTV, ABC, ABC2, and elsewhere internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Gould–Margaret Thatcher exchange</span> 1983 BBC television spat over Falklands war

An exchange on 24 May 1983 between Diana Gould, an English schoolteacher and former Women's Royal Naval Service meteorological officer, and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was voted in 1999 as one of the most memorable moments in British television. Appearing as a member of the public on BBC Nationwide's On the Spot live election special, Gould confronted Thatcher over the sinking of the Belgrano, an Argentine warship, during the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina.

References

  1. ↑ Blakeway Productions' website www.blakeway.tv details past and present programming
  2. ↑ BBC 2 and WNET, 1992. The film used excerpts from Levi's writing and memories of those who knew him. It won a Sandford St. Martinaward
  3. ↑ Channel 4, 1992, a four-part series which included the testimony of senior military commanders and politicians from both sides of the 1982 conflict between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands/Las Malvinas
  4. ↑ BBC 1 1993. Margaret Thatcher, former colleagues and world leaders (including Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan) remembered and debated her years as Britain's prime minister
  5. ↑ A Very Singular Man, BBC2, 1998 - written and presented by Michael Cockerell
  6. ↑ The Major Years, BBC 1, 1998
  7. ↑ The Last Days of Tony Blair, Channel 4, 2007 - written and presented by Will Hutton.
  8. ↑ BBC 2, January and February 2014, Producers Karen McGill (The Necessary War) and Richard Sanders (Royal Cousins at War)
  9. ↑ BBC 2, 3rd and 4th January 2012, Produced and Directed by Rob Coldstream
  10. ↑ BBC 2, 19 February, Produced and Directed by Randall Wright. Royal Television Society award Best Arts Documentary. BAFTA nomination
  11. ↑ BBC 2, 2nd, 3rd, 4 January 2013. Series Producer Lucy McDowell
  12. ↑ BBC1 8 April 2013
  13. ↑ Distributed by BBC Worldwide
  14. ↑ John Murray, London, 2010 ISBN   978-0-7195-2383-0
  15. ↑ Sidgwick & Jackson with Channel 4 Television, London 1992 ISBN   978-0-283-06101-1
  16. ↑ George Allen & Unwin, London, 1985 ISBN   0-04-341029-4
  17. ↑ BBC Radio 4, Archive on 4, 10 November 2011
  18. ↑ BBC Radio 4, The Archive Hour , 1 June 2013, producer Melissa FitzGerald
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.