My friend Graham Theakston, who has died of cancer at the age of 62, was a talented director of television drama over the past 30 years. He will be best remembered for Channel 4's The Politician's Wife, for which he won a Bafta award in 1995, and The Mill on the Floss (1997). He worked on many popular shows, including Cadfael (1994), New Tricks (2003-5), Sherlock (2002), Inspector Lynley (2007) and Blue Murder (2007).
Born and raised in Bradford, Graham went to grammar school and was the first in his family to go to college. He was originally intended for a career in architecture but was drawn to stage and screen after several inspiring visits to London in the early 1970s. His London friends musicians, actors, designers steered him towards a job in television and he got his break as a director, thanks to the producer Richard Bates, on a sci-fi series called Tripods in 1984.
Continue reading...