Piers Haggard

Director

March 18, 1939 (83 years)

† January 11, 2023

London, England, UK

Biography

Piers Inigo Haggard OBE, was a British theatre, film and television director, although he worked mostly in the latter. Haggard was born in London but grew up on a small farm in Clackmannanshire. His daughter is the actress Daisy Haggard.

Filmography

6.6

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

5.3

BBC Play of the Month

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

7.1

Screen Two

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

7.0

Playhouse

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

7.0

ITV Playhouse

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

5.2

The Wednesday Play

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

4.2

Thirty-Minute Theatre

An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.

8.2

Public Eye

Public Eye is a British television drama broadcast from 1965 to 1975 on ITV1. Produced by ABC Television for three series, and Thames Television for a further four, the programme follows the investigations and cases handled by the unglamourous enquiry agent Frank Marker.

7.5

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

6.3

Space Precinct

An NYPD officer transfers his family to a space station.

5.0

Churchill's People

Churchill's People is a British anthology series based on A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill's four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies. 26 episodes were produced by the BBC and initially broadcast from 30 December 1974 to 23 June 1975.

7.0

Callan

Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972. The series starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, a reluctant professional killer for a shadowy branch of the British Government's intelligence services known as 'the Section'.

N/A

Who's Afraid of Opera?

Three zany puppets bring to life our greatest opera treasures, as Joan Sutherland, the world’s most famous soprano, performs their highlights. The puppets make up the audience: Sir William, a wise old goat; Little Billy, his nephew; and Rudi, a rather boisterous lion. Sutherland first introduces them to the story of each opera. Then, backed by the London Symphony Orchestra and a first-rate cast, she moves onto the opera stage, complete with elaborate sets and elegant costumes. After each exquisite aria, the diva comes back to her inquisitive friends and unfolds the plot.

N/A

The Love School

The Love School is a BBC television drama miniseries originally broadcast from 22 January to 26 February 1975 about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The series was written by John Hale, Ray Lawler, Robin Chapman, and John Prebble, and directed by Piers Haggard, John Glenister and Robert Knights. The drama was a significant influence on the subsequent 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It was also the basis of the historical novel of the same name by Hale.

N/A

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's non-Sherlock Holmes stories embodying the author's interest in boxing, the supernatural, and medical matters.

7.6

Pennies from Heaven

Pennies From Heaven is a 1978 BBC television drama serial written by Dennis Potter. The title is taken from a song of the same name written by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston. It was one of several Potter serials to mix the reality of the drama with a dark fantasy content, and the earliest of his works where the characters burst into miming to popular 1930s songs. During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.

6.8

Quatermass

In the near future, a now-elderly Bernard Quatermass investigates the disappearance of his granddaughter and a mysterious cult.

5.0

Zodiac

Zodiac was a six-part series transmitted by ITV in 1974. Starring Anton Rogers and Anouska Hempel as cynical detective David Gradley and his astrologer associate Esther Jones, the unusual astrological premise set this show apart from the humdrum detective dramas of the time. Little seen since its original broadcast, the series has garnered something of a cult status.

8.0

Objects of Affection

A series of plays written by Alan Bennett.

6.0

Armchair Theatre

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.