THE GUARDIAN

amended version of original newspaper article

Online Publication: September 9, 2024
Print Publication: September 19, 2024 (PDF copy)

Robert Sidaway spent a decade as a busy actor in popular British television programmes before utilising his entrepreneurial and creative skills to flourish behind the camera.

He had a great mainstream success with the documentary series Best Of British (1987-94), which explored UK film from the 1930s to the 1980s. It was co-written and produced with his son Ashley, with whom he enjoyed a fruitful 40-year professional partnership.

Having discovered that the film library at the Rank Organisation was free to licence, Robert found himself “picking up thirty cans of film, putting them in a supermarket trolley and trundling them down Wardour Street to the post-production studio we were using. I remember thinking ‘I hope nobody sees me - we should have an assistant doing this’.”

The result, a series of compilations featuring clips from classic films grouped together thematically, narrated first by John Mills and then Anthony Quayle, was broadcast on prime time BBC Television over sixty-seven episodes. “The BBC needed a filler against Coronation Street,” he recalled “and it did so well we got five seasons of it.” The series ending up utilising hundreds of films from all the major British film libraries.

A series along similar lines for Channel 4 in 1994 – The World Of Hammer – raided that studio’s blood spattered archive (encompassing the famous horror and science fiction films, as well as the wide variety of other genres) and was narrated by Oliver Reed. In 2019, Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman, showcased the renowned independent film maker’s exhaustive output through extensive interviews and clips from their films.

The pioneering pair were also early advocates of digital filmmaking. They wrote and produced Rainbow (1995), a children’s fantasy with ambitious effects sequences which was directed by and starred Bob Hoskins. Developed amidst an atmosphere of industry scepticism, it became the first all-digital feature production, but suffered distribution woes and was never released theatrically in the USA. Sidaway was, nonetheless, satisfied that he had proved the doubters wrong and showed what could be done with technology now commonplace in the industry. 

He spent decades in independent international film production and development, and the results included historical epic Nouvelle-France with Gérard Depardieu (2004), biographical drama Modigliani starring Andy Garcia (2004), and Cold War thriller Joy Division (2006). The variety of output also included creating and narrating the animated educational series Chuck The Eco Duck (2009-10) and writing and producing the fantasy adventure Into The Rainbow (2017), a China-New Zealand co-production shot in 3-D.

Robert was born in Wolverhampton to Ronald “Bill” Sidaway, chairman and managing director of large manufacturing firm Ductile Steels in Willenhall, West Midlands, and his wife Beryl (nee Webb). He attended Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton and then Trent College in Long Eaton, Nottingham.

Having had a taste of professional experience at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, in 1958, he trained at LAMDA (London Academy Of Music & Dramatic Art) (1960-62). His first professional job was at the request of his friend Donald Sutherland, who needed someone to replace him at Chesterfield repertory theatre.

Obligatory stints on the regional stage then followed, including playing Algernon to Flora Robson’s Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest (Newcastle, 1964). In the West End, his credits included A Public Mischief (St Martin’s Theatre, 1965), The Magistrate (with Alistair Sim, Cambridge Theatre, 1969) and Abelard and Heloise (with Diana Rigg and Keith Michell, Wyndham’s Theatre, 1970).

His television credits included No Hiding Place (1963), Sergeant Cork (1964), Out Of The Unknown (1965) and The Avengers (1968). He played two roles in Doctor Who - first opposite William Hartnell in The Savages (1966) and then as the cheery, affable and dashing Captain Turner in the Patrick Troughton adventure The Invasion (1968). As Turner he was part of the first flourishing of army outfit UNIT (which would become a mainstay of the series); got to go up in a helicopter; and announced one of the series’ most enduring sequences - the Cybermen bursting from the sewers and marching in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. 

When he appeared in a few episodes of the Midland soap opera Crossroads in 1973 (as a love interest for Susan Hanson’s Diane Parker), he found himself being asked to join the writing team – alas his humorous style did not find favour with the star Noele Gordon, and he was fired after six months.

From the early 1970s he had work in public relations and marketing for London theatre managements and then became a producer for shows including No Sex Please We’re British (Strand Theatre, 1971), Joseph And His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (on tour, 1975) and a West End run of Anastasia (1976).

Moving to television, a silent comedy pilot he wrote and produced - The Optimist (1983-85), starring Enn Reitel as a cross between Mr. Bean and Walter Mitty - became one of Channel 4’s first commissions and ran for two series, the first filmed on location in Los Angeles and the second across London.

Dogged to the last he had two co-productions in Canada on the go and had been working in Sri Lanka in order to gain funding for a passion project set there - a love story called Rachel’s Song - when he was taken ill in Thailand, where he died.

His marriage to actress Margaret Don in 1964 (after they met in repertory at Pitlochry Festival Theatre) ended in divorce. Ashley, their son, survives him, as does Kate, the daughter from his 1977 marriage to Sandra Miller, which also ended in divorce.