 In a television career spanning nearly 20 years and cut short only by his
premature death, James MacTaggart produced, directed or wrote well over 100
individual television plays or episodes. He began as an actor before joining BBC
Scotland as a radio producer in the 1950s, subsequently moving into
television.
MacTaggart's successful production of Jack Gerson's Three Ring Circus (tx.
2/2/1961), the winning entry in a Scottish television play writing competition,
precipitated his move to London, where he would lead the cutting edge of
television drama. Three Ring Circus had included fantasy and expressionistic
elements, and MacTaggart's colleague Troy Kennedy Martin later suggested that
MacTaggart joined him in London specifically to pursue such non-naturalistic
drama: "We were going to destroy naturalism", said Kennedy Martin, "if possible,
before Christmas".
Exploring non-naturalistic techniques, MacTaggart produced Storyboard (1961),
a drama anthology which aimed to "tell a story in visual terms", something which
television was then still learning to do. He followed it up with the similar
Studio 4 (1962) and then Teletale (1963), an experimental testing ground for new
directors. Between these series MacTaggart directed instalments of Z Cars
(1962-78), Moonstrike (1963), and all six episodes of Alun Owen's Corrigan Blake
(1963).
His non-naturalistic work continued with the six-part Diary of a Young Man
(1964), a serial written by Kennedy Martin and John McGrath. MacTaggart
introduced it as "a new kind of writing for television, exploring the
possibilities of the medium in a rather more extreme way than we've tried
before". The serial used voice-over, musical montages and sequences of still
images to tell its story.
This work primed him for his career-defining assignment, that of producer of
the Wednesday Play (1964-70). MacTaggart took control of The Wednesday Play for
its second series, rapidly remoulding it into a showcase for new and (sometimes
controversially) contemporary drama, employing innovative, often young, writers
and directors like Dennis Potter, James O'Connor, Ken Loach and Don Taylor. As
an anthology, the series had room for all styles of production, but it's
noticeable that expressionistic devices, such as those used on the early
experimental anthologies and Diary of a Young Man, were common during
MacTaggart's year in charge.
He remained involved with The Wednesday Play even after concluding his
producership, returning to direct a number of subsequent instalments. Among
these were a trilogy of legal-themed plays by barrister Nemone Lethbridge, and
Charles Wood's colourful 'Drums Along the Avon' (tx. 24/5/1967).
In 1968 MacTaggart became one of the founders of Kestrel Productions,
Britain's first independent television drama production company, and for them
directed plays destined for London Weekend Television, notably Dennis Potter's
'Moonlight on the Highway' (Saturday Night Theatre, tx 12/4/1969). Kestrel
Productions didn't last long and he returned to the BBC as a freelance writer
and director in late 1969. The following year he gained his one big screen
credit, directing All the Way Up, a comedy of social advancement based on a play
by David Turner.
In the early 1970s MacTaggart directed several instalments of The Wednesday
Play's successor, Play for Today (1970-84). Perhaps most notable of these were
the unsettling 'Robin Redbreast' (tx. 10/12/1970) and 'Orkney' (tx. 13/5/1971),
a trio of short dramas set and filmed on the Scottish islands.
Also on a Scottish theme was the serial Scotch on the Rocks (tx.
11/5-8/06/1973), a BBC Scotland production adapted by MacTaggart from a novel by
Andrew Osmond and future Tory Home Secretary Douglas Hurd. The story depicted
Scottish nationalism, fuelled by North Sea oil wealth, leading to violent
insurrection. Although the serial was a futuristic thriller, it sparked some
controversy and the BBC upheld a complaint by the Scottish National Party that
it amounted to damaging propaganda against them.
The advancement of electronic effects in the early 1970s allowed MacTaggart
to expand his range of non-naturalistic techniques. Most notably, for 'Candide'
(Play of the Month, tx. 6/2/1973) he used the superimposition effect Colour
Separation Overlay to position his characters against a variety of entirely
artificial backgrounds, a trick he repeated on Alice Through the Looking Glass
(tx. 25/12/1973).
MacTaggart died suddenly in May 1974, aged 46, having just returned from
filming in Tobago for 'Robinson Crusoe' (Play of the Month, tx. 29/12/1974).
Just two months before his death he had been awarded the Society of Film and
Television Arts' Desmond Davis Award for outstanding contribution to television,
and he received the Press Guild's equivalent award posthumously. In a tribute
broadcast by the BBC (In Vision, tx. 7/6/1974), his colleagues praised his
technical brilliance and affinity with his audience.
In 1976 he was honoured by the first James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, given
in Edinburgh by his colleague John McGrath on the subject of non-naturalistic
television drama. The lecture was subsequently subsumed into the annual
Edinburgh International Television Festival and continues to be given by the
industry's key figures.
Oliver Wake
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FILM & TV CREDITS
