Film-maker who brought new voices and stories to television audiences
It is difficult now to credit the atmosphere of exuberant optimism in the 1980s as Channel 4 opened its doors, with Jeremy Isaacs at the helm, and the
BBC began, albeit reluctantly, to commission programming from independent production companies. This opened up a new world for film-makers with something to say; and Reality Productions, which consisted of Diane Tammes, who has died aged 78, Dee Dee Glass and Seona Robertson, was formed to work with voices and stories hitherto absent from television. The company delivered its first – and Channel 4’s 30th – programme, Pleasure Palaces, a three-part series on the heyday of cinema through memories and classic
Hollywood films, in 1982, and it aired in November that year.
Diane had met Dee Dee in one of the earliest intakes to the National Film and Television School, which opened its doors in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, under the innovative Colin Young in 1971. There were no lectures: just skilled professionals for the students’ use, space to experiment and money for the making of films. Young’s graduates went on to take over the media world for some decades.