Philip Saville

Philip Saville (28 October 1927 – 22 December 2016) was a British director, screenwriter and former actor whose career lasted half a century. The British Film Institute's Screenonline website described Saville as "one of Britain's most prolific and pioneering television and film directors". His work included 45 contributions to Armchair Theatre (1956–1972) and he won two Best Drama Series BAFTAs for Boys from the Blackstuff (1982) and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986). Early life Saville was born Philip Saffer on 28 October 1927 at Marylebone, London (in later life he gave his birth year as 1930, a date repeated in all his obituaries), son of Louis Saffer (who later assumed the anglicized form of the family name, "Saville", chosen by his father, Joseph Saffer, a master tailor), a travelling salesman for a clothing company, and Sadie Kathleen (known as "Kay"), née Tanenberg, supervisor of Fortnum & Mason's women's fashion department at Piccadilly. He studied science at London University and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). His National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals was ended by his discharge after he sustained a serious knee injury involving an armoured vehicle. Career From the 1950s, Saville worked in television as a director working on plays such as Harold Pinter's A Night Out (1960) for ABC's Armchair Theatre anthology series. He directed over 40 plays for Armchair Theatre and helped pioneer the innovative visual style it became known for, including rapid and intricate camera movements during the often live productions. The critic John Russell Taylor, however, wrote that Saville had submerged the romance "Duel for Love" (Armchair Theatre, 1961) "under intricate camerawork of exquisite beauty and complete irrelevance".