Derrick John Goodwin is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 theatre and television director

Television director

A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...

, writer, and producer.

Early life

Goodwin was born in London and educated at St. Mary's School, Hendon

Hendon

Hendon is a London suburb situated northwest of Charing Cross.-History:Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday , but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the highest hill', is earlier...

, and the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

. He has a BA in music (Hons) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Career

Goodwin began his career in stage management

Stage management

Stage management is the practice of organizing and coordinating a theatrical production. It encompasses a variety of activities, including organizing the production and coordinating communications between various personnel...

. He was an assistant director at the Royal Court Theatre

Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

. Goodwin founded The Living Theatre company with Ken Loach

Ken Loach

Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...

, Jill Gascoine

Jill Gascoine

Jill Gascoine is a British actress and novelist. She is most widely known for her role as Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes in the 1980s television series The Gentle Touch and its spin-off series C.A.T.S. Eyes...

, and Brian Grellis

Brian Grellis

Brian Grellis is a British actor, best known for his role in the television series Z-Cars as Det. Sgt. Bowker.Other TV credits include: Softly, Softly, Pathfinders, The Regiment, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, The Onedin Line, The Good Life, Last of the Summer Wine, Survivors, Enemy at the...

, converting an old school in Leicester

Leicester

Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...

 into a 200-seat open stage theatre. After two years the building was needed for a new road scheme. A new theatre was built for their use by the city council, but they never moved into it. Derrick Goodwin has directed over a hundred theatre productions including plays by Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, Anton Chekhov and several of his own plays including four plays for children.

Goodwin returned to the Royal Court to assist David William, in the production of Pirandello's Naked, and then was invited to become assistant director at the Open Air Theatre Regent's Park

Regent's Park

Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...

. He was then appointed Artistic Director of the Dundee Repertory Theatre

Dundee Repertory Theatre

Dundee Repertory Theatre or Dundee Rep is a theatre and arts company in the city of Dundee, Scotland. It operates as both a producing house - staging at least six of its own productions each year, and a receiving house - hosting work from visiting companies throughout Scotland and the United...

. After two years at Dundee he was invited by David William to become his Associate Director at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, mainly being responsible for the new Close Theatre Club which was also run by the Citizens' theatre board. He was then appointed Artistic Director of the Ipswich

Ipswich

Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...

 Arts Theatre. John Neville was about to become Artistic Director of the new Nottingham Playhouse

Nottingham Playhouse

The Nottingham Playhouse is a theatre in Nottingham, England. It was first established as a repertory theatre in the 1950s when it operated from a former cinema. Directors during this period included Val May and Frank Dunlop.-The building:...

, he also wanted to re-open the Newcastle Playhouse and asked Goodwin to become its director. When John Neville decided to leave the Nottingham Playhouse, Goodwin also resigned and joined 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...

 drama department. He directed episodes of Thirty-Minute Theatre, and 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...

. He became freelance and with Rodney Bewes

Rodney Bewes

Rodney Bewes is an English television actor and writer who is best known for playing Bob Ferris in the BBC television sitcom The Likely Lads and its colour sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? , and in the various radio series based on them , and in the big screen film The Likely Lads...

 co-wrote and directed several series of Dear Mother...Love Albert

Dear Mother...Love Albert

Dear Mother...Love Albert later retitled Albert! was a successful British sitcom broadcast between September 1969 and June 1972. It was created by and starred Rodney Bewes. Bewes co-wrote and produced the series with Derrick Goodwin...

. He directed the tour of "My Fat Friend" for Michael Codron Ltd and the tour of "Relatively Speaking" for The Oxford Playhouse.

Goodwin produced and directed many series of both situation comedy

Situation comedy

A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 and episodes of drama series including New Scotland Yard, and Within these Walls. He co-wrote, with Sid Green, the series Mixed Blessings which he also produced and directed. It ran for six seasons. He directed and produced Thick as Thieves, written by Dick Clement

Dick Clement

Dick Clement, OBE is an English writer.Born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England, Clement was educated at Bishop's Stortford College and is best known for his writing partnership with Ian La Frenais. Generally, Clement and La Frenais write comedies, or dramas with a comic tone...

 and Ian La Frenais

Ian La Frenais

Ian La Frenais, OBE, , is an English writer best known for his creative partnership with Dick Clement. They are most famous for television series including, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.They have also written various other work...

, and starring 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,...

 and Bob Hoskins

Bob Hoskins

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...

. He was then invited by the Canadian Broadcasting Company to set up a new drama and entertainment department in Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

. Whilst in Canada, he wrote and directed two half-hour films. He returned to England and directed many productions for the BBC, London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...

, Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

 and Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...

. He was commissioned by Alan Ayckbourn

Alan Ayckbourn

Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...

 to write a play, Abiding Passions, which was directed by Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre

Stephen Joseph Theatre

The Stephen Joseph Theatre is a theatre in the round in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England that was founded by Stephen Joseph and was the first theatre in the round in Britain....

, Scarborough. It was later re-cast and directed by Goodwin at the Palace Theatre, Watford

Watford

Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...

. It also had a production at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith

Hammersmith

Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...

, Goodwin's last television series was for Alamo Productions and the BBC, Taking the Floor. He now concentrates on writing for theatre and TV and also teaching theatre, television and film.
He has just completed his first novel "I Got You Babe" which is a free e-book.

External links

• Derrick Goodwin at doollee.com, The Playwrights Database
• Derrick Goodwin at the British Film Institute
  British Film Institute
  The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
  
   Film & TV Database