Playwright and television writer best known for Whose Life Is It Anyway?The writer Brian Clark, who has died aged 89 of an aortic aneurysm, was ahead of his time in tackling the subject of people trying to exercise choice over dying when they have no quality of life left. In his 1972 television play Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Ken Harrison, a sculptor who is left paralysed from the neck down after a car crash, decides against being kept alive by the miracles of modern technology but has to battle medical bureaucracy. “It’s not about death – it’s about dignity and the freedom to choose,” Clark said at the time.
When he originally submitted the script unsolicited to Granada Television in Manchester, its potential was spotted by Walter Mariner, who worked closely with Peter Eckersley, the head of drama, and observed: “The subject was euthanasia, beautifully presented with the arguments for and against finely balanced.”