June Howson
Director and Producer (Drama and Comedy)
June Howson was born in London in 1931. She was offered a job as a trainee vision mixer at ABC Television due to her training in music and drama at the Royal College of Music. She trained as a director at Anglia Television in 1959 where she remained for 7 years before directing and producing a wide variety of dramas primarily for Granada but also the BBC and Thames Television.
In this interview June discusses the excitement and intensity of being a vision mixer on live television in the 1950s. She recalls her enjoyment of working on Armchair Theatre (ABC 1956-1974) and learning the craft of directing from watching the directors on the series. She discussing how she secured a position as trainee director at an emerging new regional television company, Anglia Television and her decision to work freelance, primarily at Granada before agreeing to be a permanent member of their staff. She discusses being ‘an actors’ director’ and enjoying working with the close up shot. She discusses the conditions of her directorial debut on The Midday Show (Anglia TV 1959) and how she subsequently directed light entertainment programmes for two years. She recalls the controversy which ensued from pairing a black boy to dance with a white girl on Crescendo around 1959/60 and her unwillingness to remove the sequence. June recalls her directorial debut in drama on Lynne Reid Banks’ single play Already It’s Tomorrow (Anglia 1962). Being one of the few female directors of the period, June discusses how she managed the crew and her differing but positive experiences of working for Granada, the BBC and Thames Television. She discusses how producing as well as directing work at Granada enabled her to have more input with writers and storylines. She discusses the production of dramas including Hindle Wakes (Granada 1976) with Laurence Olivier, Coronation Street (Granada/ITV 1960- ), Nearest and Dearest (Granada 1968-1973), The House of Elliott (BBC 1991-1994) and The Bill (Thames Television 1984-2010). She discusses the shifts to television drama production in the 1990s and her subsequent work in theatre from 1999.
Interview
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How to cite this page
Women’s Work Oral Histories/Oral Histories/Vicky Ball, Women’s Work in British Film and Television, https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/bectu/Oral Histories,Saturday 4th May 2024.
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WOMEN’S WORK ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
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