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Roy Battersby

Roy Battersby

Directing

Biography

Roy Battersby (1936-2024) was a British director. He started his career making documentary features for the BBC, including work on their groundbreaking science series Tomorrow's World. In 1970 he directed the innovative scientific documentary film The Body, before moving into drama and directing TV plays, often working with writer Colin Welland. He made with several films for the Play for Today series but his role as an organiser with the Workers Revolutionary Party and his Trotskyist politics led to him being blacklisted by the BBC at the behest of Special Branch and the security services, a fact which Battersby was unaware of at the time. Once his association ended in the 1980s, Battersby was allowed to direct at the BBC once more. Serials such as 1986's King of the Ghetto led to regular work on Between the Lines in the early 90s. Now specialising in crime drama, he also helmed several episodes of ITV's Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost and Cracker. His 2005 film Red Mercury was shown at the Montreal World Film Festival, where it was nominated for best film. In 1996, Battersby was awarded the Alan Clarke award at BAFTA. He was married to actress Judy Loe and is the stepfather of actress Kate Beckinsale.

Known For

Play for Today
6.6

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Play for Today

1970
A Touch of Frost
7.5

Jack Frost is a gritty, dogged and unconventional detective with sympathy for the underdog and an instinct for moral justice who attracts trouble like a magnet. Despite some animosity with his superintendent, Norman “Horn-rimmed Harry” Mullett, Frost and his ever-changing roster of assistants manage to solve cases via his clever mind, good heart, and cool touch.

A Touch of Frost

1992
Inspector Morse
7.9

Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses.

Inspector Morse

1987
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
7.0

Anthology series of dramatic works.

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

1969
ScreenPlay
6.0

Screenplay was a drama anthology television series, broadcast on BBC between 1986 and 1993. Numerous episodes were produced including one named "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" starring Robbie Coltrane as English writer Samuel Johnson who in the autumn of 1773, visits the Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland. That episode was directed by John Byrne and co-starred John Sessions and Celia Imrie.

ScreenPlay

1986
Cracker
6.6

The wise-cracking Fitz is a brilliant but flawed criminal psychologist with a remarkable insight into the criminal mind.

Cracker

1993
Between the Lines
5.5

Detective Superintendent Tony Clark is an ambitious member of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, an internal organisation that investigates claims of corruption inside the police in England and Wales. Along the way Clark overcomes strong influence from his superiors and problems in his private life, most notably the break-up of his marriage following an affair with WPC Jenny Dean.

Between the Lines

1992
Doomwatch
6.4

Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC 1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist, responsible for investigating and combating various ecological and technological dangers. The series was followed by a film adaptation produced by Tigon British Film Productions and released in 1972, and a revival TV film was broadcast on Channel 5 in 1999.

Doomwatch

1970
Centre Play
7.0

Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.

Centre Play

1973
Unnatural Causes
6.3

An anthology of seven psychological dramas, each with a different cast and crew, exploring deaths in unusual circumstances.

Unnatural Causes

1986
Space Island One
9.0

Space Island One is a British/German science fiction television series that ran for 26 episodes beginning in 1998. A co-production between the UK's Sky One channel and the German Vox channel, it starred Judy Loe as Kathryn McTiernan, the commander of the multinational crew of the space station Unity.

Space Island One

1998
King of the Ghetto
N/A

An idealistic former soldier helps unite and house ethnic minorities in a run-down area of London's east end.

King of the Ghetto

1986
The Moth
6.7

This 1940s drama presents a story of class conflict and its influence on romance. Robert Bradley leaves the shipyards to work in his uncle's furniture business but soon finds himself at odds with the old man. So he becomes a servant for the destructive Thormans, and falls for the lady of the house, Sarah. But in 1913 this upstairs/downstairs romance can only lead to disaster.

The Moth

1997
No image
5.5

A sharp barrister teams up with a strong-minded solicitor to take on battles with the British legal system.

In Defence

2000
Yellowbacks
8.0

Britain in the very near future. In an abandoned hotel, a young female doctor and a middle-aged scientist are interrogated separately. The question they are both asked is 'Where is Martin Pitt?'

Yellowbacks

1990
The Black Candle
5.0

Lily Whitmore is the heir to a crumbling factory that she's determined to restore to its former glory. Unfortunately, Lily must instead turn her attention to the conniving Lionel Filmore who's determined to marry into the family no matter what.

The Black Candle

1991
Red Mercury
5.3

Three young Muslim men, part of a terror cell, are making a bomb in a London flat, when they get a call to vacate immediately with their gear. The police have been alerted and they are under suspicion.

Red Mercury

2005
The Act
N/A

Eastern Europe, February 1944: Johann Frink and Otto Hansen, once famous Berlin cabaret artists, are summoned to take part in a special 'entertainment', devised by a mysterious Nazi captain. When they discover where they are to perform, they find themselves with an appalling dilemma.

The Act

1989
Doomwatch: Winter Angel
7.3

University lecturer Neil Tannahill is drawn into a sinister conspiracy involving secretly-stored Soviet nuclear waste at a remote British nuclear facility after receiving an enigmatic note from legendary atomic scientist and one-time former head of "Doomwatch" (the infamous Scientific watchdog group of the seventies), Dr Spencer Quist.

Doomwatch: Winter Angel

1999
Mr. Love
4.8

An fifty-year-old mild-mannered gardener becomes a lovable legend in his town for his talent to romantically please every woman that fancies him.

Mr. Love

1986