Free Thinking

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The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Beryl Vertue

Beryl Vertue

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Beryl Vertue

Matthew Sweet meets the Sherlock producer and ex-agent of Tony Hancock who has turned 90.

Veteran producer of classic TV shows Beryl Vertue talks to Matthew Sweet about a career that began in the 1950s with a job she didn't think she wanted.

From Frankie Howerd to Sherlock: Beryl Vertue is the producer of some classic TV shows including Men Behaving Badly.  She took Steptoe and Son to America, negotiated for writer Terry Nation to retain some of the rights for his Dr Who Daleks creation, and back when she began in the 1950s, worked with a Who's Who of comedy writing talent at Associated London Scripts as well as representing Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd as their agent.  As chairman of the family firm Hartswood Films, her more recent projects have included revamping Dracula and Sherlock for TV.  She discusses the successes and failures she has had in her six-decade career with Matthew Sweet and shares with him what it was like working with Ken Russell and Tina Turner on Tommy and what she thinks makes a good deal. 

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

You can find other conversations about classic TV in the Free Thinking archives including 
Quatermass: Nigel Kneale's groundbreaking 1950s TV sci-fi series with Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Una McCormack , Claire Langhamer and Matthew Kneale     https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b03y
The Goodies: Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie talk to Matthew Sweet about how humour changes and the targets of their TV comedy show which ran during the '70s and early '80s      https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000hcb
British TV and film producer Tony Garnett talks to Matthew Sweet about a career that encompassed the Wednesday Play for the BBC, This Life and Undercover.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07h6r8l

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