Head Of Drama: The Memoir of Sydney Newman

The posthumous memoir of the iconic producer behind Doctor Who, The Avengers (1961), and many other classics - complete with rare photographs and a Whovian afterword.

A major influence on the BBC and independent television in Britain in the 1960s, as well as on CBC and the National Film Board in Canada, Sydney Newman acted as head of drama at a key period in the history of television. For the first time, his comprehensive memoirs - written in the years before his death in 1997 - are being made public. Born to a poor Jewish family in the tenements of Queen Street in Toronto, Newman’s artistic talent got him a job at the NFB under John Grierson. He then became one of the first producers at CBC TV before heading overseas to the U.K. where he revitalised drama programming. Harold Pinter and Alun Owen were playwrights whom Newman nurtured, and their contemporary, socially conscious plays were successful, both artistically and commercially. Later, at the BBC, overseeing a staff of 400, he developed a science fiction show that flourishes to this day: Doctor Who.