The Stage

Ground-breaking TV producer Lambert dies at 71

Published Friday 23 November 2007 at 13:20 by Matthew Hemley

Verity Lambert, the BBC’s first female TV producer and the original producer of Doctor Who in 1963, has died aged 71.

Lambert, who has produced shows including Minder, Rumpole of the Bailey, Jonathan Creek and Love Soup, passed away on November 22, just a few weeks before she was due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television Awards next month.

She joined the BBC in 1963 as its youngest producer and as the Corporation’s first female in such a role, before going on to oversee the first two series of Doctor Who.

Later she moved to Thames Television, where she worked on the shows The Naked Civil Servant and was the chief executive of the company’s film subsidiary Euston Films, which produced Minder.

In the eighties, she set up her own production company called Cinema Verity, which made the sitcom May to December and the soap Eldorado. The company also made the BBC series The Cazalets, which was co-produced by Joanna Lumley.

Speaking to The Stage, Lumley praised Lambert, saying “she was the top of her game all the time”. She added: “I loved her dearly.”

Lambert received an OBE for services to film and television in 2002 and also won Bafta’s Alan Clarke Award for outstanding contribution to television in the same year.