Donald McWhinnie

Donald McWhinnie (16 October 1920 – 8 October 1987) was a British BBC executive and later a radio, television, and stage director.

Educated at Rotherham Grammar School, McWhinnie worked for the BBC in administrative roles in the 1940s and 1950s and was drama Script Editor from 1951 to 1953. In the later 1950s, he became a radio director, and from the 1960s to the 1980s he was a director of television drama.

In the 1950s, McWhinnie collaborated with Daphne Oram, Desmond Briscoe and Frederick Bradnum on Private Dreams and Public Nightmares. Broadcast on the Third Programme on 7th October 1957, it was described by McWhinnie in his on air introduction as a "radiophonic poem" - the first time the BBC had used the term "radiophonic" . In 1988, it was re-broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and credited in the Radio Times as "the final step on the road to the formation" of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. In McWhinnie's four-minute-long on air introduction to the broadcast, he described the programme as an "experiment", noting that through manipulating recordings they were able to create "sounds which no one has ever heard before."

In 1959, McWhinnie directed a production of Embers, a radio play by Samuel Beckett. First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, the play won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year. McWhinnie wrote about his approach to radio drama in The Art of Radio.

In 1962, McWhinnie was nominated for a Tony Award for his screen version of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker.

The inaugural episode of the BBC Television Shakespeare in December 1978 was announced to be Much Ado About Nothing, directed by McWhinnie and starring Penelope Keith and Michael York. The episode was shot at a cost of £250,000, edited, and announced as the first of the series, but then was suddenly pulled from the schedule and replaced with Romeo and Juliet. No reasons were given by the BBC, although newspaper reports suggested the episode had been postponed for re-shoots, due to worries that an actor's "very heavy accent" would be a problem for US audiences. However, there were no reshoots, the episode was abandoned and was later replaced by a new adaptation. It appears that the BBC management regarded the production as a failure.

In 1981, McWhinnie was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director for Translations.

Selected credits as director BBC television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour (1967) Moll Flanders (ITV TV series, 1975) Wings (BBC TV series, 1978) Tales of the Unexpected, episode "William and Mary" (1979) Love in a Cold Climate (Thames Television serial, 1980) Mapp and Lucia (Original and best TV series 1985-1986)

Radio Plays 18.06.56 Giles Cooper - Mathry Beacon 13.01.57 Samuel Beckett - All That Fall 15.08.57 Giles Cooper - The Disagreeable Oyster 14.12.57 Samuel Beckett - From an Adandoned Work 13.01.58 Giles Cooper - Without the Grail 12.04.58 Robert Bolt - The Drunken Sailor 03.08.58 Giles Cooper - Under the Loofah Tree 23.11.58 Giles Cooper - Unman, Wittering and Zigo 09.02.59 James Hanley, Leo McKern, Jack MacGowran - The Ocean 24.06.59 Samuel Beckett - Embers 29.07.59 Harold Pinter - A Slight Ache 06.10.59 James Hanley - Gobbet 25.02.60 Harold Pinter - A Night Out 06.10.64 Samuel Beckett - Cascando 03.10.73 McWhinnie/Hilda Lawrence - The Hands

Stage 1960 The Duchess of Malfi (RSC) 1961 The Caretaker (Samuel Beckett) - Broadway 1962 A Passage to India - Broadway 1963 Rattle of a Simple Man - Broadway 1965 All in Good Time - Broadway 1967 The Astrakhan Coat (Pauline Macaulay) - Broadway 1983 Lovers Dancing, Starring Paul Eddington, Colin Blakely, Georgina Hale, Jane Carr - The Albery Theatre