Claude Whatham (7 December 1927 in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

– 4 January 2008 in

Anglesey Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strait and some islets and skerries. Anglesey island ...

) was an English film and TV director mainly known for his work on dramas.

Early life

In 1940, Whatham, a teenage evacuee art student, had been commissioned to paint fairytale pictures by the young Princess Elizabeth and

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original c ...

. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

the series of portraits by Sir

Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at ...

that usually line the walls of the Waterloo Chamber were removed from their frames for safe keeping and replaced by his fairytale pictures, painted on wallpapers rolls. In 2020 Whatham's works were exhibited in the Waterloo Chamber.

Career

Whatham attended

Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, w ...

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

Granada Television ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...

where he made documentaries and dramas including ''

The Younger Generation ''The Younger Generation'' is a 1929 American part-talkie drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Ricardo Cortez. It was produced by Jack Cohn for Columbia Pictures. It was Capra's first sound film. While mostly silent, the film has ...

'' featuring a young

John Thaw John Edward Thaw, (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor who appeared in a range of television, stage, and cinema roles. He starred in the television series '' Inspector Morse'' as title character Detective Chief Inspector ...

, and ''

You in Your Small Corner "You in Your Small Corner" is a British television play shown in the '' Play of the Week'' series on the Independent Television (ITV) on 5 June 1962. It was formerly believed to include the first televised interracial kiss on British televisio ...

''. He then moved to the BBC where he worked on '' The Wednesday Play'', ''

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 ...

'', '' Disraeli'' and the 1969 adaptation of '' A Voyage Round My Father''. Other television directing included the adaptation of

Laurie Lee Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE (26 June 1914 – 13 May 1997) was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, who was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire. His most notable work is the autobiographical trilo ...

's childhood/coming of age memoir ''

Cider with Rosie ''Cider with Rosie'' is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee (published in the US as ''Edge of Day: Boyhood in the West of England'', 1960). It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with ''As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'' (1969) and '' A ...

'' and ''

Jumping the Queue Jumping or leaping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living (e.g., robotic) mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory. Jumping can be distinguished from running, galloping and o ...

''.

Filmography

*''Frontiers'' (1967 documentary short) *''All's Well That Ends Well'' (1968 TV film) *''Cider with Rosie'' (1971 TV film) *'' That'll Be the Day'' (1973) *'' Swallows and Amazons'' (1974) *'' All Creatures Great and Small'' (1975 TV film) *''The Inventing of America'' (1975 TV documentary) *''Betzi'' (1978 TV film) *''Facing the Sun'' (1980 film) *''

Sweet William Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones ...

'' (1980) *'' Hoodwink'' (1981) *''Can I Help You?'' (1981 short) *''Murder Is Easy'' (1982 TV film) *'' The Captain's Doll'' (1983 TV film) *''Tornado'' (1985 documentary short) *''Murder Elite'' (1985) *''Jumping the Queue'' (1989 TV miniseries) *'' Buddy's Song'' (1991)

References

External links

* 1927 births 2008 deaths English film directors English television directors {{UK-film-director-stub