Dorothea Brooking

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Dorothea Brooking (* 7. December 1916 in Slough , Berkshire , England as Dorothea Smith Wright , † 23. March 1999 in Haywards Heath , West Sussex , England) was a British television producer , screenwriter and director mainly of television programs for children for BBC. Among other things, she staged the television mini-series Der Mondschimmel , which is very popular in Germany .

life and career

Born as Dorothea Smith Wright in 1916 in Slough, a town in the county of Berkshire, she first received her education at a boarding school in England and then graduated from high school in Montreux , Switzerland . Back on the island, Dorothea studied acting at the Old Vic in London . The theater was a tradition in the family, an ancestor had already given Hamlet in the 19th century and her brother also became an actor. At the Old Vic Theater she then met fellow student John Brooking and the two married.

After the birth of their son, Timothy, the family moved to Shanghai . Dorothea worked there for two years as a writer and producer for Shanghai Radio. Fearing the Japanese occupation in World War II, the family moved back to England and Dorothea Brooking found work with the BBC . She was one of seven producers - four women and three men - selected from over 100 applicants.

From the production headquarters in the Alexandra Palace of the British Broadcasting Corporation, she was appointed head of the newly established children's department within the BBC in 1950. Given the possibility of creating programs and high quality standards for young children's television, she adapted literary works by famous authors such as Edith Nesbit , Frances Hodgson Burnett , Charles Dickens or Mark Twain and thus became very important for British children's television in the 1950s and 1950s 1960s. Over the course of the next quarter of a century she was responsible for numerous adaptations of many popular children's classics such as The Secret Garden (1952, 1960 and 1975), The Railway Children (1951 and 1957) and The Treasure Seekers (1961). She also made adaptations of contemporary works, including Tom's Midnight Garden in 1974.

In 1963, the BBC children's television was merged with the women's program under the title "Family Programs" and Dorothea Brooking was also given this department. In the mid-1960s, however, she left the BBC and became a freelance TV producer.

She produced, among other things, John Tully's exciting adaptation of Burton Hesters Castors Away (BBC, 1968), about two children who were alive at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar . It was her first collaboration (of seven television works) with the writer John Tully.

The topic of the mystical in connection with history had fascinated Brooking from childhood. She was particularly interested in the literature about the legendary figure of King Arthur . The result was a fruitful collaboration with the author Brian Hayles , which in 1978 resulted in the multi-part television film adaptation of The Moon Mold, which Dorothea Brooking staged with great attention to detail and at original historical locations in Uffington and the surrounding area. The main roles were played by James Greene , Sarah Sutton , John Abineri , Caroline Goodall and David Haig .

In 1980 she received a Special Award at the Pye Color Television Awards in London for her contribution to children's television.

1982 staged her final work for British television with The Haunting of Cassie Palmer , a drama about the supernatural.

Dorothea Brooking wrote and produced numerous episodes for well-known British television series in her 30-year career, and often directed them herself.

She died on March 23, 1999 at Haywards Heath, West Sussex, at the age of 82.

Awards

  • 1980: Pye Color Television Award for Outstanding Service to British Children's Television

Filmography (selection)

Television director

  • 1961: The Treasure Seekers (TV series)
  • 1961: The Racketty Street Gang "(TV series)
  • 1962: The Six Proud Walkers "(TV series)
  • 1968: Castors Away! (TV series)
  • 1974: Tom's Midnight Garden (TV miniseries)
  • 1978: The Moon Stallion (The Moon Stallion) (TV miniseries)
  • 1982: The Haunting of Cassie Palmer (TV series)

Television producer

  • 1951: The Railway Children (BBC - 12 episodes)
  • 1952: The Secret Garden (BBC - 8 episodes)
  • 1956: The Black Brigand (BBC - 8 episodes)
  • 1959: Great Expectations (BBC - 13 episodes)
  • 1960: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (BBC - 7 episodes)

Screenwriter (selection)

  • 1951: The Railway Children (12 episodes)
  • 1953: The Story of the Treasure Seekers (6 episodes)
  • 1961: The Treasure Seekers (6 episodes)
  • 1961: The Racketty Street Gang (6 episodes)
  • 1975: The Secret Garden "(7 episodes)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Mondschimmel in: Handbuch der Fantastischen TVserien , by Winfried Gerhards, 2001, page 224
  2. ^ Dorothea Brooking in: Dickens on Screen , by John Glavin, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 214
  3. ^ Dorothea Brooking in: Turning the Page: Children's Literature in Performance and the Media , by Fiona M. Collins, Jeremy Ridgman, Peter Lang, 2006, p. 84
  4. ^ Dorothea Brooking in: British television: an illustrated guide , by Tise Vahimagi, Michael Ian Grade, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 115
  5. ↑ Dorothea Brooking in: The hill and beyond: children's television drama: an encyclopedia , by Alistair D. McGown, Mark J. Docherty, British Film Institute, British Film Institute, 2003, p. 17
  6. ↑ Dorothea Brooking in: Arthurian legends on film and television , by Bert Olton, McFarland & Co., 2000, p. 210
  7. ↑ Dorothea Brooking in: King Arthur in Pop Culture , by Elizabeth Sherr Sklar, Donald L. Hoffman, McFarland, 2002, p. 99
  8. ^ Profile of the director Dorothea Brooking in: Screenonline
personal data
SURNAME Brooking, Dorothea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith Wright, Dorothea (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film director, screenwriter and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Slough , Berkshire , England
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1999
Place of death Haywards Heath , West Sussex , England