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Jonathan Stedall
Born
Jonathan Hugh Pemberton Stedall

(1938-01-20)20 January 1938
Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, England
Died21 October 2022(2022-10-21) (aged 84)
EducationCothill House
Harrow School
Alma materLondon School of Film Technique
Occupations
  • Television producer
  • documentary filmmaker
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1981; died 2014)​

Maureen Rowcliffe
​
(m. 2021)​
Children2
Websitejonathanstedall.co.uk

Jonathan Hugh Pemberton Stedall (20 January 1938 – 21 October 2022) was an English television producer and documentary filmmaker known for his collaborations with John Betjeman, Malcolm Muggeridge and Alan Bennett.

Early life

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Stedall was born on 20 January 1938 in Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, to Peter Stedall, a director of his family's tool-manufacturing company[1] in the City of London,[2] and his wife Mollie. Stedall had a sister and a brother.[1] His parents divorced when he was eight.[3] He was educated at the independent Cothill House[4] and Harrow School.[1]

On leaving Harrow, Stedall briefly worked in the family business, before studying at the London School of Film Technique.[1]

Career

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Early career

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Stedall worked as an assistant stage manager, then as a stage manager,[2] with the repertory company at the Grand Theatre in Croydon. He then became an assistant film editor at Pinewood Studios.[1]

Independent Television

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For two years[2] Stedall was a floor manager at the Independent Television companies Television Wales and the West (TWW) and Associated Television (ATV).[1]

On rejoining TWW, the franchise holder for Independent Television in South Wales and the West of England, Stedall directed factual programmes.[1] He directed Betjeman's West Country films broadcast by TWW[5] between 1962 and 1963. The films featured towns including Sidmouth, Bath, Weston-super-Mare and Devizes.[1] Stedall would remain friends with Betjeman until the end of his life in 1984.[5] Stedall also worked with the writer Gwyn Thomas on portraits of Rhondda, Neath and other South Wales areas from 1962 to 1963.[1]

BBC

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In 1963, Stedall moved to the BBC as a producer and director.[4] He started with two months on the current affairs programme Tonight.[1] From 1964 to 1966,[2] he produced Footprints, a travel series telling historical stories,[1] followed by three films[2] for the 1966 The World of a Child series.[1]

In 1968, Stedall produced In Need of Special Care, a two-part documentary series about the Camphill Movement's work helping people with learning disabilities, which won the 1969 Society of Film and Television Arts Robert Flaherty Award[1] and was nominated for the Society's United Nations Award.[4] He switched to films about historical figures for Gandhi's India (1969), The Story of Carl Gustav Jung (1971) and Tolstoy: From Riches to Rags (1972).[1]

In 1973, Stedall produced In Defence of the Stork, which examined the connections between embryology and the story of creation in the Book of Genesis, with Camphill's Thomas Weihs. That same year, Stedall directed Thank God It's Sunday, about how Londoners spend their Sundays. The programme was repeated on the BBC's Everyman in 1995, when it was introduced by Alan Bennett.[2] He then worked on One Pair of Eyes (1974–1983), Summoned by Bells (1976) and The Long Search (1976–1978).[6]

Stedall produced India – One Man's Truth (1978), an interview with the prime minister Morarji Desai, and From Our Own Delhi Correspondent (1982), a programme about the country's future.[1]

In 1982, Stedall made Muggeridge: Ancient and Modern, in which Malcolm Muggeridge looked back on his life. In A Week With Svetlana (1982), Muggeridge interviewed Joseph Stalin's daughter, and, in Solzhenitsyn (1983), the Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn.[1]

In 1983, Stedall presented and produced Time with Betjeman, a 7-part series celebrating Betjeman's life and work.[7] In 1985, he produced a 10-part Whicker's World series about Britons living in the US, Living With Uncle Sam, which earned BAFTA[1] and Broadcasting Press Guild nominations. This was followed by a film with Laurens van der Post for his 80th birthday. Stedall directed four films inspired by William Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man speech. Dinner at Noon, a portrait of Harrogate Hotel, followed, and in 1989, the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, he made Revolution!!.[2]

Independent work and writing

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Stedall left the BBC in 1990[1] and became an independent documentary filmmaker in 1993, producing 21 films over 12 years.[2] These included "Karachi to The Khyber Pass", an episode of Great Railway Journeys (1994),[1] and Portrait or Bust (1994), about Leeds Art Gallery. He also produced The Abbey (1995), a day in the life of Westminster Abbey,[2] then Mark Tully's Faces of India (1997) for Channel 4, marking the 50th anniversary of the country's independence.[1]

Stedall directed the 100 Greatest Britons episode on Elizabeth I (2002),[1] written and presented by Michael Portillo.[2]

In 2009, Stedall wrote Where on Earth is Heaven?. In 2017 he produced a collection of poems written after the death of his wife in 2014, No Shore Too Far.[2] In 2021,[8] he published An Enchanted Place, in which Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends are de-anthropomorphised to fight against a housing development scheme in their beloved countryside.[2]

Personal life

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In 1981, Stedall married Jackie Barton, a statistician and teacher who later became a mathematics historian.[1] They had two children and lived in Painswick, Gloucestershire.[9] Jackie died of cancer in 2014.[2]

In 2021, Stedall married Maureen Rowcliffe.[1] He died of cancer on 21 October 2022, at the age of 84.[1]

Filmography

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Year Title Role Notes
1962–1963 Betjeman TWW films Director 12 episodes
1964–1966 Footprints Producer
1966 The World of a Child Producer 3 episodes
1968 In Need of Special Care Writer / producer 2 episodes
1973 In Defence of the Stork Producer
1973 Thank God It's Sunday Director 1 episode
1974–1984 One Pair of Eyes Producer / director 9 episodes
1976 Summoned by Bells Producer Television film
1977 The Long Search Director 13 episodes
1978 India – One Man's Truth Producer 1 episode
1982 Muggeridge: Ancient and Modern Producer 8 episodes
1982 From Our Own Delhi Correspondent Producer 1 episode
1983 Time with Betjeman Presenter / producer 7 episodes
1985 Whicker's World: Living with Uncle Sam Producer 10 episodes
1988 Dinner at Noon Television film
1989 Revolution!! Director Television film
1994 The Lost Betjemans Director Television film
1994 Betjeman Revisited Director Television film
1994 Great Railway Journeys Producer 1 episode
1994 Portrait or Bust Director Television film
1995 Thank God It's Sunday Director 1 episode
1995 The Abbey Director 3 episodes
1997 Mark Tully's Faces of India Producer
2002 100 Greatest Britons Director 1 episode

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Hayward 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Obituaries". myPension.
  3. ^ Stedall 2009, p. 6.
  4. ^ a b c "About". Jonathan Stedall.
  5. ^ a b Hallam 2021.
  6. ^ "Films". Jonathan Stedall.
  7. ^ "Time with Betjeman". BBC Programme Index.
  8. ^ "Jonathan Stedall". Hawthorn Press.
  9. ^ Neumann 2014.

Sources

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  • "About". Jonathan Stedall. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
  • "Films". Jonathan Stedall. Retrieved 14 April 2025.
  • Hallam, Chris (4 July 2021). "Poet laureate's ode to 'seductive' town by the sea". Sidmouth Herald. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
  • Hayward, Anthony (27 October 2022). "Jonathan Stedall obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
  • "Jonathan Stedall". Hawthorn Press. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
  • Neumann, Peter (24 October 2014). "Jacqueline Stedall obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
  • "Obituaries". myPension. Retrieved 7 April 2025.
  • Stedall, Jonathan (2009). Where on Earth is Heaven?. Hawthorn Press. ISBN 978-1-903458-90-7.
  • "Time with Betjeman". BBC Programme Index. Retrieved 5 April 2025.
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