Vanessa Victoria Whitburn (born 12 December 1951) is a British radio producer, and a former editor of ''
The Archers
''The Archers'' is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word Radio broadcasting, channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now pr ...
''.
Early life
Whitburn was born in
Totnes
Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and ab ...
,
Devon
Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
, the daughter of Victor Whitburn and Eileen Wellington. She has a younger brother (born 1954). She failed her
11-plus
The eleven-plus (11+) is a standardised examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools which use academi ...
and her parents sent her to
Mount St Mary's Convent School, Exeter, which closed in 1997.
She graduated from the
University of Hull
The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...
with a BA degree in English and American Studies in 1974. At university, she directed theatre productions, and took part in the university television station.
Earlier career
She joined the BBC after university in 1974 as a trainee sound technician.
From 1976 to 1977, she worked for BBC Television. From 1977, she worked as a producer in radio drama for the BBC, at their Radio Drama Unit, which produced the ''
Afternoon Play
''Drama'' (formerly ''Afternoon Theatre'', ''Afternoon Drama,'' ''Afternoon Play'') is a BBC Radio 4 radio drama, broadcast every weekday at 2.15pm. Generally each play is 45 minutes in duration and approximately 190 new plays are broadcast eac ...
''. From 1977 to 1980,
she was assistant producer of ''The Archers'' while William Smethurst was in charge of the programme. During this period she cast
Trevor Harrison
Trevor Harrison (born 16 March 1957) is an English actor best known for his role as Eddie Grundy in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera, ''The Archers''.
Early life
Harrison was born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire on 16 March 1957. He was educated at t ...
as Eddie Grundy and
Sara Coward as Caroline Bone (later Pemberton and Stirling). "William Smethurst, recognised that I was good at directing and casting so he let me get on with that whilst he concentrated on storylines and scripts", she explained in 2010.
From 1988 to 1990, she was the producer of
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
's ''
Brookside Brookside may refer to:
Geography Canada
* Brookside, Edmonton
* Brookside, Newfoundland and Labrador
* Brookside, Nova Scotia
United Kingdom
* Brookside, Berkshire, England
* Brookside, Telford, an area of Telford, England
United States
* Bro ...
''. According to Whitburn, she was with the programme for four years, during the period
Jimmy McGovern
James Stanley McGovern (born September 1949) is an English screenwriter and producer. He is best known for creating the drama series '' Cracker'' (1993–1995), for which he received two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. He als ...
was still a member of the scriptwriting team,
''The Archers''
She became the Editor of ''The Archers'' in June 1991. She became executive producer of all radio drama for
BBC Birmingham
BBC Birmingham is one of the oldest regional arms of the BBC, located in Birmingham. It was the first region outside London to start broadcasting both the corporation's radio (in 1922) and television (in 1949) transmissions, the latter from t ...
at
BBC Pebble Mill
Pebble Mill Studios was the BBC's television studio complex located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, which served as the headquarters for BBC Birmingham from 1971 until 2004. The nine-acre site was opened by Princess Anne on ...
in 1995 (later based at
The Mailbox
Mailbox Birmingham, also known as The Mailbox, is a mixed-use development located within the city centre of Birmingham, England. It houses British luxury department store chain Harvey Nichols, and the BBC Birmingham studios.
The scheme compr ...
), including ''
Silver Street
''Silver Street'' was a radio soap opera broadcast on the BBC Asian Network from 24 May 2004 to 26 March 2010. It was the first soap to be aimed at the British South Asian community,
Broadcast history
It was introduced in 2004 as part of the ...
'' for the
BBC Asian Network
BBC Asian Network is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially those between the ages of 18 and 34. The station has produc ...
. Clashes between Whitburn and Smethurst (who had left the programme in 1986) became publicly known in 1996, with the former accusing Smethurst of "fluffy and frothy" Conservative propaganda, and the latter retaliating with the assertion that Whitburn had "no understanding of the countryside" and the serial under her had become "badly written feminist tripe". Smethurst wrote that then current plot lines simply did not happen in the countryside, although journalists pointed to real-life parallels. "Farming is, and will always be, central to the show. It’s our USP", she commented in 2010.
[ ] "I drive in to work every day through the countryside and I’m always watching what the farmers are doing, and making sure we have covered that", she told
Peter Stanford
Peter James Stanford (born 23 November 1961) is an English writer, editor, journalist and presenter, known for his biographies and writings on religion and ethics. His biography of Lord Longford was the basis for the 2006 BAFTA-winning film '' ...
.
The programme in Whitburn's hands was periodically accused of being politically correct. The racial origin of the South African character Lucas Madakane (Connie M'Gadzah) was not directly mentioned when he was introduced around 2001, which Victoria Mather in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' thought "bizarre in a gossipy rural community".
Mark Lawson
Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author. Specialising in culture and the arts, he is best known for presenting the flagship BBC Radio 4 arts programme '' Front Row'' between 1998 and 2014. He is also a '' Guardian'' ...
of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' wrote that while any racism in the serial's fictional Ambridge "may be occurring out of earshot", treatment was also dramatically realistic because the issue of a person's skin colour is now seldom referred to directly in Britain. It was also accused of being too melodramatic. "We can’t win", Whitburn said in 2010. "If I do nothing, people say it’s too dull".
The 60th anniversary of the programme was billed as containing developments to "shake Ambridge to the core", which turned out to be long-term character Nigel Pargetter (
Graham Seed
Graham Seed (born 12 July 1950 in Godalming) is an English actor.
Education
Seed was born on 12 July 1950. He was educated at Charterhouse School, an independent boarding school in the market town of Godalming in Surrey, followed by RADA in Londo ...
) being killed in an accident.
Whitburn left her position as the Editor of ''The Archers'' at the end of May 2013 after 22 years. From 2011 to 2013, she was also Editor of ''
Ambridge Extra
''Ambridge Extra'' is an extension of the long-running radio drama ''The Archers''. It began broadcasting sporadically on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4 Extra from 5 April 2011. The programme ran for five series, before it was "rested".
O ...
''. During the period Whitburn was Editor, ''The Archers'' had up to 5 million listeners. Her decision to formally retire from her roles was announced in March 2013.
Personal life
Whitburn lives in
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon ( ), commonly known as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon (district), Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of Engl ...
, and also shares a house in Cape Town, South Africa with her partner.
On Friday 11 February 1994, she had a car accident at 11.30am on Bristol Road near Pebble Mill on her way into work, in her white VW Golf. She was taken to the intensive care at Birmingham General Hospital.
She spent 17 days in hospital, after
fracturing her pelvis and sustaining other injuries; she returned to work in June 1994.
She was awarded the
OBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
in the
2014 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 2014 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...
.
Publications
* ''The Archers: the official inside story'', 1996
See also
*
List of The Archers characters
This is a list of many of the characters from the long-running British radio soap ''The Archers''.
The Archer family tree
The Archer family
Jill Archer Patterson (born 3 October 1930) (Patricia Greene) is the ...
References
External links
The Archers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitburn, Vanessa
1951 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Hull
British radio producers
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People from Stratford-upon-Avon
People from Totnes
British women radio producers