Anthony Read
Encyclopedia
Anthony "Tony" Read is a British
script editor
, television writer and author
. He was principally active in British television
from the 1960s
to the mid-1980s
, although he occasionally contributed to televised productions until 1999. Starting in the 1980s, he launched a second career as a print author, concentrating largely on World War II
histories. Since 2004 he has regularly written prose fiction, mainly in the form of a revival of his popular 1983 television show, The Baker Street Boys
.
, and is thus not available for inspection by a modern audience. Nevertheless, Read was prodigious during the early part of his career. His earliest work was as a freelance writer for Z-Cars
in 1962. He soon graduated to writer/script editor of several other adventure
-mystery series, like the anthological Detective, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling and Peter Cushing
's 1965 Sherlock Holmes
vehicle. The balance of the decade was spent on the adult drama, The Troubleshooters. Though little of his work on the petroleum industry
drama survives today, Troubleshooters would provide Read with the steadiest work of his career. He was the series' original script editor in 1965, and ended his run as producer
of the 1969 season.
and The Dragon's Opponent extended his run as a producer of contemporary dramas. It also continued a few key professional relationships he had enjoyed since the mid-1960s. Notably, The Lotus Eaters reunited him with director Douglas Camfield
and writer David Fisher
.
By 1978, Read had been lured to Doctor Who
by producer Graham Williams
. As the mid-season replacement for Robert Holmes
, Read's biggest personal stamp on the long-running science fantasy
show was undoubtedly the "Key to Time" story arc
, and the shaping of the character of Romana I. A key ally in his days on Doctor Who was again David Fisher. Fisher wrote a full third of the "Key to Time" stories, and then wrote (or co-wrote) three more stories in the next year.
Read was also instrumental in commissioning Douglas Adams
as a Doctor Who writer, and for advocating the Hitchhiker's Guide author to be his replacement as script editor. His final contribution to Doctor Who was as scriptwriter for The Horns of Nimon
. Given the cancellation of Shada
, he was thus the final writer of the Graham Williams era on the program.
Immediately following his stint on Doctor Who in 1979, he contributed the scripts for the episodes Powers of Darkness and Out of Body, Out of Mind to the paranormal thriller series The Omega Factor
, he co-wrote the fifth Sapphire & Steel
television story, known informally as Dr McDee Must Die. In 1984 Read adapted the John Wyndham
novel, Chocky
, for Children's ITV
. Its success led to two original sequels: Chocky's Children and Chocky's Challenge. In an interview for the DVD release of Chocky, Read revealed that the Wyndham estate considered his adaptation of Chocky to be the best adaptation ever produced from Wyndham's novels.
Read's biggest critical success of the 1980s, however, was 1983's The Baker Street Boys
. The series' unique approach to the world of Sherlock Holmes
garnered Read an award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain.
One of the notable facts about Read's second career as an author is the degree to which he continued his relationship with David Fisher into the world of non-fiction writing. While the majority of Read's books were solo works, he and Fisher combined a number of times, almost always to explore some aspect of World War II. Together the duo wrote The Fall of Berlin, Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941, The Proudest Day: India's Long Road to Independence, Operation Lucy: The Most Secret Spy Ring of the Second World War, Berlin Rising: Biography of a City, Colonel Z: The Secret Life of a Master of Spies, and Kristallnacht: The Nazi Night of Terror.
Read's solo non-fiction works follow a similar interest in World War II, but he has occasionally written prose fiction. He has been the main writer of a series of novels about The Baker Street Boys, a television show for which he wrote in the early 1980s.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
script editor
Script editor
A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
, television writer and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. He was principally active in British television
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
from the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
to the mid-1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
, although he occasionally contributed to televised productions until 1999. Starting in the 1980s, he launched a second career as a print author, concentrating largely on World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
histories. Since 2004 he has regularly written prose fiction, mainly in the form of a revival of his popular 1983 television show, The Baker Street Boys
The Baker Street Boys
The Baker Street Boys is a British television series made by the BBC and first shown in 1983. The series is based around a gang of street urchins living in Victorian London who assist the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes in solving crimes and find themselves tackling cases of their...
.
1960s
Like other artists who worked during the 1960s, a substantial portion of Read's body of work was junked by the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, and is thus not available for inspection by a modern audience. Nevertheless, Read was prodigious during the early part of his career. His earliest work was as a freelance writer for Z-Cars
Z-Cars
Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...
in 1962. He soon graduated to writer/script editor of several other adventure
Adventure (genre)
The adventure genre, in the context of a narrative, is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations...
-mystery series, like the anthological Detective, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling and Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
's 1965 Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (1965 TV series)
Sherlock Holmes was a series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by British television company BBC between 1965 and 1968.-Production:...
vehicle. The balance of the decade was spent on the adult drama, The Troubleshooters. Though little of his work on the petroleum industry
Petroleum industry
The petroleum industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting , and marketing petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline...
drama survives today, Troubleshooters would provide Read with the steadiest work of his career. He was the series' original script editor in 1965, and ended his run as producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
of the 1969 season.
1970s
When he departed The Troubleshooters, Read kept his producer's hat on for a few years, before returning to his more traditional roles of script editing and writing. The Lotus EatersThe Lotus Eaters (TV series)
The Lotus Eaters is a BBC television drama made between 1972 and 1973.The series, written by Michael J. Bird, dealt with the lives of various British ex-pats living on the island of Crete and their reasons for being there...
and The Dragon's Opponent extended his run as a producer of contemporary dramas. It also continued a few key professional relationships he had enjoyed since the mid-1960s. Notably, The Lotus Eaters reunited him with director Douglas Camfield
Douglas Camfield
Douglas Gaston Sydney Camfield was an accomplished director for television from the 1960s to the 1980s. His programme credits include Z-Cars, Paul Temple, Van der Valk, The Sweeney, Shoestring, The Professionals, Out of the Unknown, The Nightmare Man, the BBC dramatisation of Beau Geste and...
and writer David Fisher
David Fisher (writer)
David Fisher is a British professional writer for television. He was born in 1929.He wrote the scripts for four serials of Doctor Who. He first contributed The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara during that show's sixteenth season, and The Creature from the Pit for the seventeenth season...
.
By 1978, Read had been lured to Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
by producer Graham Williams
Graham Williams
Graham Williams was a British television producer and script editor, whose best known work was on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who....
. As the mid-season replacement for Robert Holmes
Robert Holmes (scriptwriter)
This entry is about the television scriptwriter. For other people with the same name, see Robert Holmes .Robert Colin Holmes was an English television scriptwriter, who for over twenty-five years contributed to some of the most popular programmes screened in the UK...
, Read's biggest personal stamp on the long-running science fantasy
Science fantasy
Science fantasy is a mixed genre within speculative fiction drawing elements from both science fiction and fantasy. Although in some terms of its portrayal in recent media products it can be defined as instead of being a mixed genre of science fiction and fantasy it is instead a mixing of the...
show was undoubtedly the "Key to Time" story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
, and the shaping of the character of Romana I. A key ally in his days on Doctor Who was again David Fisher. Fisher wrote a full third of the "Key to Time" stories, and then wrote (or co-wrote) three more stories in the next year.
Read was also instrumental in commissioning Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
as a Doctor Who writer, and for advocating the Hitchhiker's Guide author to be his replacement as script editor. His final contribution to Doctor Who was as scriptwriter for The Horns of Nimon
The Horns of Nimon
-Outside references:The plot of this serial incorporates aspects of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur - a fact the Doctor comments on at the end of the last episode...
. Given the cancellation of Shada
Shada
Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season , but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming...
, he was thus the final writer of the Graham Williams era on the program.
Immediately following his stint on Doctor Who in 1979, he contributed the scripts for the episodes Powers of Darkness and Out of Body, Out of Mind to the paranormal thriller series The Omega Factor
The Omega Factor
The Omega Factor is a British television series produced by BBC Scotland in 1979...
1980s
Together with Don HoughtonDon Houghton
Don Houghton was a British television screenwriter.Born in Paris, Houghton started writing for radio in 1951 before moving into film and television in 1958...
, he co-wrote the fifth Sapphire & Steel
Sapphire & Steel
Sapphire & Steel is a British television science-fiction fantasy series starring David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire. Produced by ATV, it ran from 1979 to 1982 on the ITV network. The series was created by Peter J. Hammond who conceived the programme under the working title The...
television story, known informally as Dr McDee Must Die. In 1984 Read adapted the John Wyndham
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
novel, Chocky
Chocky
This article is about the novel; see also the TV series Chocky Chocky is a science fiction novel by John Wyndham, first published in 1968 by Michael Joseph. The BBC produced a radio adaption by John Tydeman in 1967...
, for Children's ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
. Its success led to two original sequels: Chocky's Children and Chocky's Challenge. In an interview for the DVD release of Chocky, Read revealed that the Wyndham estate considered his adaptation of Chocky to be the best adaptation ever produced from Wyndham's novels.
Read's biggest critical success of the 1980s, however, was 1983's The Baker Street Boys
The Baker Street Boys
The Baker Street Boys is a British television series made by the BBC and first shown in 1983. The series is based around a gang of street urchins living in Victorian London who assist the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes in solving crimes and find themselves tackling cases of their...
. The series' unique approach to the world of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
garnered Read an award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain.
As author, historian
During the 1980s, Read gradually began to replace his television work with a burgeoning career in print. He remains an active author .One of the notable facts about Read's second career as an author is the degree to which he continued his relationship with David Fisher into the world of non-fiction writing. While the majority of Read's books were solo works, he and Fisher combined a number of times, almost always to explore some aspect of World War II. Together the duo wrote The Fall of Berlin, Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941, The Proudest Day: India's Long Road to Independence, Operation Lucy: The Most Secret Spy Ring of the Second World War, Berlin Rising: Biography of a City, Colonel Z: The Secret Life of a Master of Spies, and Kristallnacht: The Nazi Night of Terror.
Read's solo non-fiction works follow a similar interest in World War II, but he has occasionally written prose fiction. He has been the main writer of a series of novels about The Baker Street Boys, a television show for which he wrote in the early 1980s.