Sydney Cecil Newman (; April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian television producer and screenwriter who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, he was appointed acting director of the Broadcast Programs Branch for the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) and then head of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He also occupied senior positions at the Canadian Film Development Corporation and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and acted as an advisor to the Secretary of State.

During his time in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, Newman worked first with ABC Weekend TV before moving across to the BBC in 1962, holding the role of Head of Drama with both organisations. During this phase of his career, he created the spy-fi series The Avengers and co-created the science-fiction series Doctor Who, as well as overseeing the production of groundbreaking social realist drama series such as Armchair Theatre and The Wednesday Play.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Newman as "the most significant agent in the development of British television drama". His obituary in The Guardian declared that "for ten brief but glorious years, Sydney Newman ... was the most important impresario in Britain ... His death marks not just the end of an era but the laying to rest of a whole philosophy of popular art." In Quebec, as commissioner of the NFB, he attracted controversy for his decision to suppress distribution of several politically sensitive films by French-Canadian directors.

Early career in Canada

Early life and the NFB

Sydney Cecil Nudelman was born in Toronto on April 1, 1917, the son of a Russian-Jewish immigrants. His father ran a shoe shop. After studying at Ogden Public School, which he left at the age of 13, he later enrolled in the Central Technical School, studying art and design subjects. However, he was unable to take the job because he could not secure a work permit. Returning to Canada in 1941, he gained a job as a film editor at the National Film Board of Canada. and in 1952 he joined the corporation as its Supervising Director of Features, Documentaries and Outside Broadcasts. but also the first Canadian Football League game to be shown on television. After his experience of seeing the production of television plays in New York, he was eager to work in drama despite, by his own admission, "knowing nothing about drama". He felt that Newman "came to fulfil the role of the drama impresario with the vision to push people to develop a high-quality and popular style of drama".

ABC Weekend TV and ITV

Soon after Newman arrived in the UK, ABC's Head of Drama Dennis Vance was moved into a more senior position with the company, and Thomas offered Newman his position, which the Canadian quickly accepted.

Newman's principal tool for shaking up this established order was a programme which had been initiated before he had arrived at ABC, Armchair Theatre.

In 1960 Newman devised a thriller series for ABC called Police Surgeon, starring Ian Hendry. Although Police Surgeon was not a success and was cancelled after only a short run, Debuting in January 1961, The Avengers became an international success, although in later years its premise differed somewhat from Newman's initial set-up, veering into more humorous territory rather than remaining a gritty thriller.

BBC

Arrival and impact

There was some initial resentment to his appointment within the corporation, as he was an outsider and he was also earning more than many of the executives senior to him, although still substantially less than he had been paid at ABC.

In 1964 he and Kenneth Adam initiated the anthology series The Wednesday Play, a BBC equivalent of Armchair Theatre, which had great success and critical acclaim with plays written and directed by the likes of Dennis Potter, Jeremy Sandford and Ken Loach. The strand attracted comment and debate for several of its productions, such as Cathy Come Home, a Tony Garnett production of a Jeremy Sandford script, which portrayed homelessness. Don Taylor, who was a director in the drama department at the time, later claimed that he felt Newman was unsuited to the position of Head of Drama, writing: "To put it brutally, I was deeply offended that the premier position in television drama, at a time when it really was the National Theatre of the Air, had been given to a man whose values were entirely commercial, and who had no more than a layman's knowledge of the English theatrical tradition, let alone the drama of Europe and the wider world."

Newman's biography at the Museum of Broadcast Communications website points out that much of the work Newman is credited for at the BBC was little different from that which had been undertaken by his predecessor Michael Barry, who "also attracted new young original writers ... and hired young directors ... However, it was the newness and innovation which Newman encouraged in his drama output that is most significant: his concentration on the potential of television as television, for a mass not a middlebrow audience."

Doctor Who

In 1963 he initiated the creation of a science fiction television series, Doctor Who. The series has been described by the British Film Institute as having "created a phenomenon unlike any other British TV programme" and by The Times newspaper as "quintessential to being British". Newman had long been a science-fiction fan: "[U]p to the age of 40, I don't think there was a science-fiction book I hadn't read. I love them because they're a marvellous way—and a safe way, I might add—of saying nasty things about our own society." Although much work on the genesis of the series was done by Donald Wilson, C. E. Webber and others, it was Newman who created the idea of the TARDIS, a time machine larger on the inside, and the character of the mysterious "Doctor", both of which remain at the heart of the programme. The origin of the title Doctor Who is less clear; actor and director Hugh David later credited this to his friend Rex Tucker, the initial "caretaker producer" of the programme, although Tucker said the title had come from Newman. In a 1971 interview, Donald Wilson claimed to have named the series and when this claim was put to Newman he did not dispute it.

After the series had been conceived, Newman approached Don Taylor and then Shaun Sutton to produce it, although both declined. Newman then decided on his former production assistant at ABC, Verity Lambert, who had never produced, written or directed, but she readily accepted his offer. As Lambert became the youngest—and only female—drama producer at the BBC, there were some doubts as to Newman's choice, but she became a success in the role. Even Newman clashed with her on occasion, particularly over the inclusion of the alien Dalek creatures in the programme. Newman had not wanted any "bug-eyed monsters" in the show but he was placated when the creatures became a great success. In the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Human Nature", the Doctor (in human form as "John Smith") refers to his parents Sydney and Verity, a tribute to both Newman and Lambert.

Other work and departure

Newman also had success with more traditional BBC fare such as the costume drama The Forsyte Saga in 1967, a Donald Wilson project on which Newman had not initially been keen. After also initiating other popular series such as Adam Adamant Lives!, at the end of 1967 Newman's five-year contract with the BBC came to an end, and he did not remain with the corporation. He also moved the NFB entirely over to color film production. He was responsible for censoring or banning several productions, including Arcand's On est au coton and Gilles Groulx's 24 heures ou plus. and pro-capitalist. but in the same year personally rejected the release of Michel Brault's film about the October Crisis, Orders (Les Ordres). Although it was Newman's deputy André Lamy who in some cases drew the monolingual Newman's attention to the controversial nature of French-language productions, it was Lamy himself who later permitted the release of some of these same films after he succeeded Newman as Government Film Commissioner.

When Newman's contract with the NFB came to an end in 1975, it was not renewed. The writer Richard Collins felt that "the very experiences that enabled [Newman] to recognize the nature of the NFB's problem and the need for a change of diction and reorientation to the tastes of Canadians had left him out of touch with Canada." For his part, Newman felt that the NFB's French program had not made enough effort to communicate with people in English Canada or to make films that were relevant to "the ordinary men, who have no particular axe to grind."

Newman went on to become a Special Advisor on Film to the Secretary of State, His main reason for going back to the UK was to attempt, unsuccessfully, to produce a drama series about the Bloomsbury Group for the new Channel 4 network. Newman was also unsuccessful in an attempt to have his name added to the end credits of the show as its creator. Acting Head of Series & Serials Ken Riddington, to whom Newman's request had been referred, wrote to him that "Heads of Department who originate programmes have to be satisfied with the other rewards that flow from doing so." The play was set in a world in which Doctor Who had never been created, existing only in the imagination and memories of fictional writer Martin Bannister, played by Derek Jacobi. As part of the plot of the play, Bannister was unable to clearly remember whether Newman had been Canadian or Australian, with the Newman character's accent changing according to Bannister's varying memories.

A biography of Newman by Ryan Danes, titled The Man Who Thought Outside the Box, was released in April 2017 by Digital Entropy Publishing.

References

Bibliography

  • Dunkley, Christopher. "A hard act to follow." Financial Times. Wednesday November 5, 1997 (page 23).
  • Sydney Newman at the National Film Board of Canada
  • Sydney Newman fonds (R738) at Library and Archives Canada

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