Claude Whatham was an English Film and television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 mainly known for his work on dramas.

Career

He attended Oldham

Oldham

Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...

 Art School and was a set designer for the Oldham Repertory Company, before joining Granada Television

Granada Television

Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

 where he made documentaries and dramas including The Younger Generation

The Younger Generation

The Younger Generation is a 1929 drama film directed by Frank Capra. It was produced by Jack Cohn for Columbia Pictures. This was Capra's first sound film. It was actually a silent movie with various dialogue sequences added into it...

featuring a young John Thaw

John Thaw

John Edward Thaw, CBE was an English actor, who appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles, his most popular being police and legal dramas such as Redcap, The Sweeney, Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC.-Early life:Thaw came from a working class background, having been born in Gorton,...

. He then moved to the BBC

BBC

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...

 where he worked on The Wednesday Play

The Wednesday Play

The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...

, Play for Today

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...

, Disraeli

Disraeli (TV serial)

Disraeli is a British mini-series about the great statesman and first Prime Minister of Jewish descent of the United Kingdom, Benjamin Disraeli. It was originally featured on British network ITV. With a screenplay by David Butler, it was produced by Cecil Clarke and directed by Claude Whatham...

and the 1969 adaptation of A Voyage Round My Father

A Voyage Round My Father

A Voyage Round My Father is an autobiographical play by John Mortimer, later adapted for television.The first version of the play appeared as a series of three half-hour sketches for BBC radio in 1963. It then became a television play with Ian Richardson playing Mortimer, Tim Good as the young...

.

Cinema films he directed included That'll be the day

That'll Be The Day (film)

That'll Be the Day is a 1973 British film starring David Essex and Ringo Starr, written by Ray Connolly and directed by Claude Whatham. It is set in the late '50s/early '60s and was partially filmed on the Isle of Wight. A sequel, Stardust, was released in 1974.-Plot summary:Jim MacLaine's mother...

, All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small (film)

All Creatures Great and Small is a 1975 television film, directed by Claude Whatham, based on the book All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot. The book is a compilation volume, first published in 1972, comprising Herriot's first two novels, If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen...

, Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons is the first book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome; it was first published in 1930, with the action taking place in the summer of 1929 in the Lake District...

, Sweet William

Sweet William (film)

Sweet William is a 1980 British drama film directed by Claude Whatham and starring Sam Waterston, Jenny Agutter, Geraldine James, Anna Massey, Arthur Lowe, Tim Pigott-Smith and Melvyn Bragg....

, Hoodwink

Hoodwink (1981 film)

Hoodwink is a 1981 Australian thriller film directed by Claude Whatham and written by Ken Quinnell. It stars John Hargreaves and Judy Davis. The film is based on the true story of a well-publicized Australian con artist...

and
Buddy's Song.

External links