Alan and the Arts
Yentob was a towering figure at the BBC for decades.
Above: Miriam Margolyes & Alan Yentob. Photo © 2022, BBC Studios / Tanya Hudson
I woke to the news on Sunday, May 25th that the British television executive and broadcaster, Alan Yentob, had died at 78. The name may not mean a lot to Americans, but he was a very large presence at the BBC, in a career there that lasted over half-a-century.
The first time I would have heard Yentob’s name was in 1996, in a Doctor Who fanzine. He was the Controller of BBC One at that time, when an ill-fated Doctor Who reboot (a television movie starring Paul McGann) was made for the channel and for the FOX Network in the USA. So, I had known who he was for many years before I’d ever worked in British media. Over his long career at the BBC in production, editorial, commissioning, and as an executive, he was often associated with the arts, and that ended up being the context in which I had my professional, and very peripheral, encounters with him.
But before the career business - a notable screen appearance from him. In 2014, Yentob made a cameo in the BBC mockumentary series, W1A, starring Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Hynes, Monica Dolan, and Jason Watkins, and narrated by David Tennant. W1A is a very astute take on the hows, whats, and whys of broadcasting, program-making, and the bureaucracy that the BBC sometimes can represent. It is recognizably hilarious to anyone who has ever had to navigate trying to get anything worthwhile done in a big organization. I knew a lot of people at the time who worked in British broadcasting that found W1A to be a little bit too close to reality for comfort! Anyway: the cameo I remember laughing out loud at involved Hugh Bonneville’s main character having an animated conversation with another person. The two of them open a BBC office door to find author Sir Salman Rushdie (a real-life friend of Yentob’s), and Yentob himself, shocked to be interrupted, mid-arm-wrestle. It was just enough of a wink to folks in the industry, or anyone who knew Yentob’s long history as a BBC executive, to be very funny. (You can watch W1A on BritBox – I very highly recommend it.)
In 2022, I got a gig archive-producing on Yentob’s long-running arts documentary strand, Imagine. This edition of Imagine was focused on interviewing the award-winning veteran actor, Miriam Margolyes, about her life and career. I tracked down all kinds of material Miriam had been in: recordings of old radio dramas she had acted in, clips of her voice parts in TV advertisements, chat show interviews with her, and footage from awards shows where she had won – all to re-use in the show. It also gave me my first, and only (to date, mind!), directly-employed BBC gig… and I had wanted to work at the BBC since I had been a budding adolescent on The Back 40™. It also gave me the opportunity to talk to the internal program-makers and commissioners about an arts and media culture documentary that I’d had brewing for years. They very politely declined it, but that is immaterial. In a tangential and roundabout way: I have Yentob to thank for both of those opportunities.
Finally: about 2 weeks ago, the current documentary I’m working on required me to track down an old, BBC visual arts magazine show called Review, from late 1971/early 1972. It was a typical, highbrow culture program of the era, and the artist subject of the documentary I’m working on was interviewed on it. We want to re-use those clips. Normally, I must watch the credits to be sure the material I’m looking at is the right, desired footage, and to help track down cataloguing and reference information in order to find it and correctly license it. Then, lo and behold, 3 names down in the credits frame (obviously alphabetically arranged): “Production Team: Alan Yentob.” He’d have been about 24 years old at the time. I giggled aloud and told my spouse about it.
It was over 50 years between the two historical, arts-oriented archive-related professional encounters I had with Yentob – both while he was at the BBC. And within mere days of the last, lightest of brushes with his name in some work-related archive footage, he is gone.
Miriam Margolyes posted this on social media at his passing:
I am devastated to learn of Alan Yentob’s death. He was a lovely man, wonderful producer, kind, funny, so much nicer than I could have believed. I was proud to have been in his Imagine BBC TV series. He cooked me fried chicken liver and onions - so delicious. I honour his memory. I’m grateful our paths crossed. Long life to his wife and loving family. Those of us who work in the Arts will salute a fighter for good. I feel bereft. Thanks to Simon Lloyd who directed our Imagine.
I didn’t know Yentob, nor ever speak to him, but I wish his family, colleagues, and friends my condolences at his passing.
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