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Vincent Tilsley

Frank Vincent Tilsley (3 June 1931 – 29 September 2013) - known as Vincent Tilsley - was an award winning English television script writer in many genres.

Vincent Tilsley, Scriptwriter and Novelist, 3 June 1931 – 29 September 2013

Life

Vincent Tilsley was born on 3 June 1931 in Levenshulme, Lancashire, a son to novelist and broadcaster Frank Tilsley and his wife Clarissa Holding. He was educated at Dulwich College, in south London, and went on to study History at Trinity College, Oxford.

His first commission was a TV serial about a Lancashire cotton mill family, The Makepeace Story (BBC, 1955), which he co-wrote with his father. He followed this with adaptations of Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott ((BBC, 1955); David Copperfield (BBC, 1956) and Nicholas Nickleby (BBC, 1957) by Charles Dickens.

His BBC commissions during the 1960s include adaptations of Emma by Jane Austen (BBC 1960) and David Copperfield by Dickens (BBC 1966), as well as numerous episodes of BBC series such as Maigret; Dr. Finlay’s Casebook (for which he shared an award from the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain); and The Third Man.

In 1965, he achieved his first Writers Guild of Great Britain award for Dr Finlay (best British dramatic TV series). In 1967, his credits included BBC2’s The Forsyte Saga (for which he shared another award from the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain); BBC1’s police series Z-Cars; and Patrick McGoohan’s cult ITV series The Prisoner for which he wrote two episodes: The Chimes of Big Ben, and Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling.

In 1971, he co-created with Rex Firkin The Guardians, a 13 part series for London Weekend Television, in which a totalitarian Britain of the near future is ruled by military force. The following year, Vincent submitted a script to LWT for a six-hour play, The Death of Adolf Hitler, about the German dictator’s last 10 days in his Berlin bunker. The play’s producer was Rex Firkin who had worked with Tilsley on Manhunt.

In 2007, after a long break from writing, his 'amplified screenplay' of the The Nativity, Holy Night was published by Green Spirit Publications in novel format. This was to be his final work.

He appeared also in Network's DVD documentary, Don't Knock Yourself Out, about the making of The Prisoner, and contributed an audio commentary for The Chimes of Big Ben episode. Links to two YouTube videos of his appearances in this documentary can be found in the External Links at the end of this page.

In 2008, he featured in Jon Ronson’s documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. Kubrick had meticulously filed every single fan letter, cataloguing them as either F-P (positive), F-N (negative) or Crank, and filed according to the home town of the writer. Ronson interviewed Tilsley, as writer of one of the longer ‘Crank’ letters - a critique of Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. This letter forms part of the collection of The Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London

He died in Worthing, West Sussex, on 29 September 2013.

Awards

Awards presented by The Writers Guild of Great Britain:

• Team award for the writers of Dr Finlay's Casebook - the best British dramatic TV series 1965.
• Team award for the writers of The Forsyte Saga - the best British TV dramatisation 1967 and Zita Plaque.
• President's award for outstanding services to the craft of writing.

Filmography

Vincent Tilsley wrote more than a hundred TV scripts during his 20 years as a screenwriter, including:

• ITV Sunday Night Theatre: The Death of Adolf Hitler (ITV, 1973)
• The Guardians (LWT, 1971)
• The Guardians - End in Dust (LWT, 1971)
• The Guardians - The Roman Empire (LWT, 1971)
• The Guardians - The State of England (LWT, 1971)
• The Guardians - Pursuit (LWT, 1971)
• Diamond v Diamond (ITV, 1970)
• Manhunt (ITV, 1970)
• Manhunt - Little Man, Big Gun (LWT, 1970)
• Manhunt - Little Man, What Next (LWT, 1970)
• Manhunt - With a Sort of Love (LWT, 1970)
• Sweeney Todd (ITV, 1970)
• The Strange Case (ITV, 1969)
• Sheer Melodrama (ITV, 1969)
• The Borderers: Witch-hunt (BBC2, 1969)
• The First Lady (BBC1, 1968)
• The Prisoner (ITV, 1967)
• Z Cars (BBC1, 1967)
• The Forsyte Saga (BBC2, 1967)
• The Troubleshooters (BBC1, 1966)
• David Copperfield - adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens (BBC1, 1966)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame - adapted from the novel by Victor Hugo (BBC2, 1966)
• Sherlock Holmes - adapted from stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (BBC1, 1965)
• The Third Man (BBC, 1963)
• The Monsters (BBC, 1962)
• Dr. Finlay's Casebook - based on characters and stories created by A.J. Cronin (BBC1, 1962-1969)
• Maigret: The Liars - adapted from the novel 'Maigret à l'école' by Georges Simenon (BBC, 1961)
• BBC Sunday-Night Play: The Chopping Block (BBC, 1960)
• Emma (adapted from the novel by Jane Austen) (BBC, 1960)
• R.C.M.P. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) (CBC /BBC, 1958 - 1960)
• Nicholas Nickleby - adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens (BBC, 1957)
• Kenilworth - adapted from the novel by Sir Walter Scott (BBC, 1957)
• David Copperfield - adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens (BBC, 1956)
• BBC Sunday-Night Theatre: The Makepeace Story - co-written with Frank Tilsley (BBC, 1955)

External Links

• Vincent Tilsley’s filmography at the British Film Institute National Archive
• Vincent Tilsley's BBC filmography at The BBC Genome Project
• THE PRISONER. Vincent Tilsley scriptwriter - Excerpt from Network's DVD documentary about The Prisoner, ‘Don't Knock Yourself Out’
• THE PRISONER. Writer Vincent Tilsley CHIMES OF BIG BEN - Excerpt from Network's DVD documentary about The Prisoner, ‘Don't Knock Yourself Out’
• Six of One - The Prisoner - The official prisoner appreciation society
• The Unmutual Website - dedicated to the 1960s TV series "The Prisoner”
• Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes - a documentary by Jon Ronson
• The Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London
• Vincent Tilsley’s Green Spirit Publishing author profile
• Vincent Tilsley’s autobiography on Green Spirit Publishing.
• Vincent Tilsley's Circle Books author profile
• Literary representation: Stephen Durbridge at The Agency
• The Vincent Tilsley Archive (for researchers): email me

Category:Writers Category:Screenwriters