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Matthew Robinson (producer)

British-Cambodian producer and director (born 1944)

Summary

British-Cambodian producer and director (born 1944)

Field	Value
name	Matthew Robinson
image	MR 2020.jpg
caption	Robinson in 2020
birth_date
birth_place	London, England
alma_mater	King's College, Cambridge
years_active	1966–present
citizenship	Cambodian (since 2020)
television	The Money Programme
24 Hours
Nationwide
Play for Today
Second City Firsts
Bergerac
Howards' Way
Shadow of the Noose
Doctor Who
Coronation Street
EastEnders
Byker Grove
relatives	Tom Robinson (brother)
occupation	Television and film
producer, director, writer

the British-Cambodian producer and director

24 Hours Nationwide Play for Today Second City Firsts Bergerac Howards' Way Shadow of the Noose Doctor Who Coronation Street EastEnders Byker Grove producer, director, writer Matthew Robinson (born 27 July 1944) is a British-Cambodian television and film executive producer, producer, director and writer. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he directed many episodes of popular British television dramas and soap operas in the 1970s and 1980s. He became the first producer (and later became the executive producer) of the series Byker Grove (19891997), and was also made the executive producer of EastEnders (1998–2000).

Robinson finished his British television career as the Head of Drama for BBC Wales. Since 2003 he has been based in Cambodia, where he runs his own production company, Khmer Mekong Films.

Early life

Robinson was educated at Huntingdon Grammar School (1955–58), Friends' School in Saffron Walden (1958–63) and King's College, Cambridge (1963–66), where he studied economics, edited student newspaper Varsity and graduated with a master's degree.

Career

Early work

Robinson's first job in television was as a researcher on the weekly consumer affairs programme On the Braden Beat made by ATV in 1966. He started directing in BBC Current Affairs (1969–73) on The Money Programme, 24 Hours and Nationwide. This was followed by many episodes of popular TV drama including Softly, Softly: Taskforce, Play for Today, Z-Cars, Emmerdale, Crown Court, Coronation Street, Angels, Brookside, Howard's Way and Bergerac. Robinson had a "reputation as an action director", and was employed to direct two Doctor Who adventures, Resurrection of the Daleks (1984) and Attack of the Cybermen (1985). He was also responsible for casting Terry Molloy as Davros, who went on to play the role twice more on television and in further audio dramas. He cast Leslie Grantham in a guest role in Doctor Who and recommended for the role of Den Watts in EastEnders.

''Byker Grove''

From 1989 to 1997 produced and part-directed the BBC's teenage drama serial Byker Grove. He cast Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. Robinson told them to "Stay together through any row you have, whatever it is, be together and you could be the future Morecambe and Wise. I think they have proved that in many ways." According to the BBC, Byker Grove tackled "many controversial issues" including a gay storyline which led The Sun to call for Robinson to be sacked at the time.

''EastEnders''

Having previously worked for producer Julia Smith on Angels, Robinson was employed to be lead director of BBC1's soap opera EastEnders when it launched in 1985.

Personal life

Robinson is the older brother of singer-songwriter, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist Tom Robinson.

In 2020 Robinson received Cambodian citizenship from Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen following support from the Minister of Culture and Fine Arts.

References

"Matthew Robinson". matthewrobinson.com.
Banks, David. (1990). "Doctor Who: Cybermen". WH Allen & Co.
"Doctor Who: My life as Davros". [[BBC Online]].
"Terry Molloy: I, Davros". [[BBC Online]].
Green, Kris. (19 October 2006). "Leslie Grantham". Digital Spy.
(27 January 2017). "Byker Grove producer: I told Ant and Dec to 'stay together'". [[BBC Online]].
"LGBTQ+ Timeline". BBC Online.
Rinith, Taing. (22 May 2020). "Legendary British film producer receives Cambodian citizenship". [[Khmer Times]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1944-births living-people alumni-of-king's-college,-cambridge bbc-executives bbc-television-producers british-expatriates-in-cambodia british-film-producers british-soap-opera-producers british-television-directors businesspeople-from-london people-educated-at-friends-school-saffron-walden writers-from-london

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