Piers Haggard
| Piers Haggard | |
|---|---|
| Born |
18 March 1939 London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Theatre director, film director, television director |
Piers Inigo Haggard OBE (born 18 March 1939) is a British theatre, film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter.
Haggard was born in London but grew up on a small farm in Clackmannanshire. He is the great-great-nephew of H. Rider Haggard, and is the son of the actor, poet and novelist Stephen Haggard who died in 1943. Haggard is married to stained glass artist Anna Sklovsky, with whom he has two children, the actress Daisy Haggard, and William Haggard who is an architect. He has four children by his first marriage, Sarah, Claire, Rachel and Philip.
Haggard began his career as an assistant director at the Royal Court in 1960, then directed at Dundee Rep and Glasgow Citizens before joining the first National Theatre company in 1963 where he co-directed (John Dexter and Bill Gaskill) and assisted Laurence Olivier and Franco Zeffirelli.
In 1965 he moved to BBC Television, directing plays for the anthology drama series Thirty-Minute Theatre in the 1960s, later working on the more prestigious anthology shows, Callan, Public Eye, Armchair Theatre (for ITV) and Play for Today (for the BBC). He directed for a variety of programmes throughout the 1970s, such as The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Love School, Love for Lydia and The Chester Cycle of Mystery Plays (1976).
Probably his best known work came later in the decade. In 1978 he was the director of Dennis Potter's landmark drama serial Pennies From Heaven for the BBC, for which he received a BAFTA Award.The following year he directed the ambitious science-fiction serial Quatermass, a Euston Films production for Thames Television, shown on the ITV network. Both of these productions are available on DVD, and the Pennies From Heaven release includes an audio commentary from Haggard.
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