Claude Whatham R.I.P.

[julian_craster]

Obituary : Claude Whatham

One of the young lions at the birth of Granada, he became a prolific director of TV drama

by Philip Purser
Thursday January 10, 2008
The Guardian

Claude Whatham, who has died aged 80, was an arch-example of the bold, tackle-anything television directors and producers discovered by the infant programme companies when commercial television was being hustled on to the air in 1955-56. Later Whatham was to make a few forays into the cinema, notably with That'll Be the Day (1973). This, a portrait of the birth of 1960s British rock, featured David Essex as a young drifter rising towards stardom - with Ringo Starr and Robert Lindsay among the minor roles.

In Manchester in the mid-1950s, Granada found that when it came to make its debut, eight months after the London contractors, most people with previous experience of television had already been snapped up. The company nevertheless contrived to recruit a corps of trainees eager to invent their skills as they went along.

They came from all manner of backgrounds. The Coronation Street writer Jack Rosenthal was about to become a shirt salesman when the call came. And the man who was to become the Street's other writer, John Finch, had become a secretary to the sculptor Jacob Epstein after merchant navy war service as a radio operator.

Whatham was a Manchester boy, though evidently the family moved around. He went to art school and must have become known as a teenage painter to have been selected for a curious wartime task that came his way.
In 1940, when public buildings and royal palaces were being stripped of their works of art, lest they be destroyed in air raids, he was summoned to Windsor Castle. The young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, were saddened by the blank walls in their rooms. Could he fill the gaps with cheerful little paintings straight on to the plaster? He did, and in family legend they were still to be seen years later.

Whatham was also one of the few trainees to have theatrical experience, with the Oldham repertory company, though as a scene painter and set designer rather than a director. Not that this would have unduly impressed Granada's idiosyncratic chairman Sidney Bernstein. Whatham recalled the address Bernstein gave to the young lions at the end of their training. It was no good putting on programmes, however brilliant, if they appealed only to the cultured section of the community. They should be brilliant, yes, but attract all viewers. "You have three minutes to get your foot in the door, grab their attention and persuade them they are in for something wonderful. You are a door-to-door salesman."
The programmes these new directors actually made at first were mainly humdrum local talks and outside broadcasts. One of Whatham's was the first Granada production to be classed as a full-blown documentary. It was called An Hour in Manchester Municipal Greenhouses. But quite soon daring and innovative drama was being slipped into the schedules. Whatham worked on two of the best. The Verdict is Yours (1958-59), relayed trials from a fictitious Birkenhead assizes. The judge and clerk of the court had some legal experience. The juries were chosen from the public, as in real life. The accused, the victims and the witnesses were actors given dossiers on their lives and circumstances but no prepared lines to deliver. The barristers were also actors, of a suitable nature. The trials took their own course across three nights (or in some ITV regions at lunchtime), with the participants sometimes becoming so wrapped up in them that off-screen sulks, shouting matches, even fist-fights took place. It was, for me, the quintessence of make-believe television

The Younger Generation (1961) was, in its way, just as experimental. It gathered together a stock company of young actors to perform 11 original one-hour plays by equally young writers, among them Robert Holles, Adrian Mitchell and Maureen Duffy. Though one began to wince when, once again, the setting was a coffee bar, it was well worthwhile. The actors included Judy Cornwell, Ronald Lacey and John Thaw.

Over the years and now a freelance, Whatham continued to demonstrate successful and esteemed TV drama drawn from such varied sources as Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, JB Priestley's Anyone for Tennis? (both 1968), Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie (1971), for which he was nominated for a Bafta award, Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons (1974), all for the BBC, and Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected (Anglia, 1980). If I were required to nominate his finest single achievement I would suggest the first version (BBC 1969) of John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father, with Mark Dignam in the role later taken by Laurence Olivier, for which Whatham was also nominated for a Bafta award; then Fothergill (BBC, 1981) from the grumpy diaries of the innkeeper John Fothergill; finally, one of his last TV works, Jumping the Queue (1989) from that late-developer writer Mary Wesley

Whatham met his wife Ann when they were both in Oldham rep. They had a daughter, Candy, and a son, Paul, who was tragically killed in a motorbike accident in his teens. By this time the family were living in London. They retired to Anglesea, where Claude died.

Claude Whatham, television and film director, born December 7 1927; died January 4 2008

[harryfielder]

He always did a good job....RIP...

Aitch,

[John Llewellyn Moxey]

Originally Posted by harryfielder He always did a good job....RIP... Aitch,

I was always a great admirer of his work. He will be missed.

John Llewellyn

[oxfam1uk]

Sorry to hear of his death, but I'm afraid I think "That'll be the day" is a horrible film.

One anecdote: It is alleged that the sex scene in "Don't look now" is the real thing.
I heard actress Deborah Watling say that when she came to record a sex scene with David Essex in "That'll be the day", Claude Whatham sidled up to her and asked "How would you feel about doing it for real?"

[julian_craster]

Claude Whatham: 'Actor's director' whose successes included 'Swallows and Amazons'
THE INDEPENDENT
Published: 15 January 2008

Claude Harold Whatham, television and film director: born Manchester 2 December 1927; married 1953 Ann Shaw (one daughter, and one son deceased); died Llanddona, Anglesey 4 January 2008.

After learning his craft with Granada Television at the dawn of ITV, Claude Whatham went on to become a respected director of dramas for both the commercial channel and the BBC.

Two of his most notable successes were A Voyage Round My Father (1969), a moving first television production of John Mortimer's autobiographical story, and Cider with Rosie (1971), based on Laurie Lee's celebrated novel about his Cotswolds childhood in the years after the First World War. Both displayed Whatham's talent for replicating the look of a period, a skill that owed much to his background as an art student and set designer for the stage.

But Whatham was also an "actor's director", who enjoyed working with people and he proved particularly adept at coaxing young performers into giving natural performances in front of the camera. For Swallows and Amazons (1974), David Wood's film adaptation of Arthur Ransome's book about six children on holiday in the Lake District during the glorious summer of 1929, he showed a natural ability to get the best out of his young cast, especially when the weather did not match that in the book. "One day, it was cold and they had to go swimming," recalled Wood, but he managed to encourage them to do it. Throughout the filming, he tried to create a family atmosphere for them. He certainly gave them an amount of freedom while making them learn activities such as sailing and rowing. He took the open-air, outdoors, sports element very seriously and, for a scene putting up a tent, he was keen that they should actually do it.

Whatham also knew how to get the best out of experienced performers and was astute in his casting. When he made two plays about oppression, by the Czech dissident Václav Havel, for a Play for Today double-bill, under the umbrella title Sorry. . . (1978), he had the offbeat idea of casting Michael Crawford – then best known as the accident-prone Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em – in the lead role of a writer living under a totalitarian regime. "If I was coming home tired, a play by a dissident Czech playwright would not be the first programme I would turn on," said Whatham.
But Havel's plays, apart from being very penetrating, are very funny and I wanted a cast who could play high comedy. The main character has to be played by somebody who has, to a great extent, worked in reaction. It seemed to me that somebody like Michael Crawford would be an absolute past master at giving a riveting performance by appearing to do almost nothing.
Whatham's hunch was validated when the production won plaudits from television critics, with Joan Bakewell in The Times praising Crawford's "performance of perfect control and naturalness".

Born in Manchester in 1927, Whatham was brought up in London and Windsor and, after attending art school, did National Service in the Army, then went to the Old Vic Theatre School in 1948 to study stage and costume design. His first job as a set designer and scene painter was at Guildford Rep, before he joined the company at the Oldham Coliseum in 1950, after which he worked at Liverpool Playhouse (1953).
Moving into television, from 1954 he was an assistant designer at the BBC, but decided to switch to directing. With no opportunities there, in December 1955 he was accepted for a producers' and directors' training course at Granada Television, as it geared up to broadcast to the north of England – ITV's third region – from the following spring.
The pioneering spirit of those early days in commercial television meant that many with little experience were given the chance to show their mettle. Whatham found himself directing live shows a week after Granada went on the air, in May 1956.
After cutting his teeth on local programmes, he directed The Verdict Is Yours (1958-59), a series of unscripted trials screened on the ITV network, with Granada viewers forming the jury. Another groundbreaking programme was The Younger Generation (1961), which gave new writers and actors – including John Thaw – a showcase on screen. He also directed plays such as Olive Latimer's Husband (in "The Edwardians" anthology series, 1965) and episodes of Coronation Street (1964).
Whatham then discovered a fruitful career as a freelance, directing several Wednesday Plays (1968-69), Glenda Jackson in Elizabeth R (1971), an adaptation of the Colette novel Chéri (1973) and episodes of the children's series Follyfoot (1972). He received Bafta nominations for both A Voyage Round My Father (which he subsequently directed as a stage play at Greenwich Theatre in 1970) and Cider with Rosie.
His rare excursions into feature films were usually successful. That'll Be the Day (1973) – featuring David Essex as a rebel drifting through life as he dreams of becoming a pop star – was described by the British Film Institute as "one of the best British films of [the] 1970s". The more gentle All Creatures Great and Small (1974), starring Simon Ward and Anthony Hopkins, was based on the Yorkshire vet stories by James Herriot and was a forerunner to the television series. Whatham's return to the rock '*' roll years with the film Buddy's Song (1990), about another teenager aspiring to be a pop star (played by the up-and-coming singer Chesney Hawkes), was less pleasing, though.

Other television credits included the historical series Disraeli (1978), episodes of Tales of the Unexpected (1980) and the feature-length Agatha Christie's Murder Is Easy (1982).

Anthony Hayward

[julian_craster]

David Essex, Ringo, Claude

From The Times
January 16, 2008

Claude Whatham
Director whose productions included some of the freshest of TV plays

Claude Whatham was a versatile television director who was equally at home in period drama and contemporary plays and brought to his work a quiet skill and sympathy, never elevating himself above his material. He also directed a number of films for the cinema.
Born in Manchester in 1927, he went to art school and worked for the Oldham Repertory Company as a set designer. From there he was among a group of promising young talents recruited by the Manchester-based television company, Granada, soon after its emergence as one of the new ITV franchises in 1956.
Thrown in at the deep end, he made a documentary about Manchester’s municipal greenhouses and worked on The Verdict Is Yours, in which a jury made up of viewers decided the outcome of fictional court cases. He directed a drama about the Tichborne claimant for a series on famous trials but his first important assignment was The Younger Generation (1961).
This was a drama series which broke new ground by having a stock company of actors, including the little-known John Thaw, who appeared in all the plays. The writers, too, were new to television and included Adrian Mitchell and Maureen Duffy. Whatham directed five of the 11 productions.
Switching to the BBC later in the 1960s, Whatham directed a Royal Shakespeare Company production of All’s Well that Ends Well and moved to contemporary drama as one of the regular directors on The Wednesday Play. His productions included Michael Frayn’s first works for television, Jamie on a Flying Visit and Birthday, and J. B. Priestley’s Anyone for Tennis?.
He gained wider recognition, in the shape of a Bafta nomination, for the original version of John Mortimer’s autobiographical play, A Voyage Round My Father (1969), with Mark Dignam as Mortimer’s blind barrister father and Ian Richardson as the young John. Dignam’s performance would be unfairly overshadowed on stage by Alec Guinness and in a later TV production by Laurence Olivier.
Whatham was one of the directors on Elizabeth R (1971), a polished and award-winning drama series which starred Glenda Jackson as the 16th-century monarch, and he adroitly captured the Gloucestershire childhood of Laurie Lee in an adaptation of Lee’s Cider with Rosie. One of the first BBC dramas to be shot entirely on film, it brought Whatham a second Bafta nomination.
He made his cinema debut with That’ll Be the Day (1973), a vehicle for the pop singer David Essex and an early success for the producer David Puttnam. He stayed in the cinema for Swallows and Amazons, a handsome if dramatically unexciting version of the children’s novel, and All Creatures Great and Small, with Simon Ward as the Yorkshire vet, James Herriot, which inspired the long-running TV series.
On television in the 1970s some of Whatham’s best work came on Play for Today, successor to The Wednesday Play, including Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, and new work by Vaclav Havel, Arthur Hopcraft and Beryl Bainbridge. He also directed an adaptation of Bainbridge’s novel, Sweet William, for the cinema. He returned to period drama on the ITV miniseries, Disraeli — Portait of a Romantic, with Ian McShane as the Victorian statesman on his rise to power.
Whatham was the original choice to direct one of the most distinguished TV dramas of the 1980s, Staying on, from Paul Scott’s novel of post-independence India. It would have taken him back to Granada but the production was dogged by delays and Whatham decided to take up an offer from Australia to make a cinema thriller, Hoodwink. The Australian Film Institute showered it with awards, and Whatham was nominated as best director, but the film made little impact elsewhere.
Whatham’s later work included an all-star Agatha Christie whodunit, Murder Is Easy, for American television, Mary Wesley’s Jumping the Queue (BBC), with Sheila Hancock as a middle-aged woman contemplating suicide, and a final cinema film, Buddy’s Song (1990), starring the veteran rock musician, Roger Daltrey.
He is survived by his wife, Anne, and daughter, Candy. His son, Paul, died in a motorcycle accident as a teenager.

Claude Whatham, television and film director, was born on December 7, 1927. He died on January 4, 2008, aged 80