Nancy Banks-Smith (born 1929) is a British

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

critic, who spent most of her career writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

''.

Life and career

Born 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 ...

and raised in a pub, she was educated at

Roedean School Roedean School is an independent day and boarding school founded in 1885 in Roedean Village on the outskirts of Brighton, East Sussex, England, and governed by Royal Charter. It is for girls aged 11 to 18. The campus is situated near the Sus ...

. Banks-Smith began her career in journalism in 1951 as a reporter at the '' Northern Daily Telegraph''. In 1955, after a brief period at the

women's section The women's page (sometimes called home page or women's section) of a newspaper was a section devoted to covering news assumed to be of interest to women. Women's pages started out in the 19th century as society pages and eventually morphed into ...

of the ''

Sunday Mirror The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...

'', she moved to the '' Daily Herald'' as a reporter. She worked for the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet ...

'' from 1960 to 1965 as a feature writer, moving to be a TV critic for '' The Sun'' in 1965. She left the newspaper in 1969 when it was bought by

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

.Celebrating 40 years of Nancy Banks-Smith
''The Guardian'', 4 February 2010 Banks-Smith began writing for ''

'' in 1970, with her television column becoming a leading feature of the newspaper. She has remained with the paper since then, though by 2010 she no longer wrote daily reviews. Until 2017, she wrote a monthly column for the paper entitled "A month in Ambridge", reviewing recent developments in the radio soap opera ''

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural set ...

''.

Awards

In 1970, she was recommended for the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

, which she declined."Some who turned honours down"
''The Guardian'', 22 December 2003, retrieved 31 August 2012.

References

External links

Nancy Banks-Smith
archives of her television reviews in ''

''
Last Night's TV
Archive of Guardian TV reviews (multiple reviewers) from 24 Dec 1998 onwards
'A nice little job for a woman at home'
Nancy Banks-Smith on her 30 years as a TV critic, ''The Guardian'', 21 November 2001
Nancy Banks-Smith Classic Reviews
''The Guardian'', 4 February 2010 1929 births Living people British television critics Women television critics The Guardian journalists Writers from Manchester Radio critics {{UK-journalist-stub