Biography

Robert Banks Stewart

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Robert Banks Stewart had an incredible career in British television drama, becoming one of its greatest ever writers, story editors and producers. He started writing in primary school, winning a Burns essay prize and contributing stories to local newspapers. At age 15, he left school to become an office boy at the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch. He did his National Service with Field Marshal Montgomery's peacetime staff. He then worked as a newspaper editor. By this time he had written several plays and done a stint as a radio commentator. He eventually left Scotland for a post as foreign corespondent for Illustrated magazine. When that publication folded, he joined the Rank Organisation, providing rewrites and producing movie and TV scripts.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

The February 2016 BAFTA ceremony neglected to mention Banks Stewart among the people from film and television who had died over the previous year.

[in 2001] A programme like that would never get made today without having a household name, but back then I fought to have John Nettles play Bergerac (1981) because he was right for it. The programme went on to have 15 million viewers.
[in 2001] There are now so many top-level bosses at the BBC and ITV that people on a lower level can no longer just say yes to a commission. Once decisions were made by producers, and they answered only to the controller. Now there are too many people all singing from the same hymn book, fearful of stepping out of line.
[in 2001] There was quite a free rein until about 10 years ago; producers and writers were allowed to take chances and didn't have to stick to the staple diet of cops and hospitals - or take a star out of a soap opera, give them a contract for several million, and slog away until you find something for them.
[in 2013] My own personal opinion is that the modern Doctor Who (2005) should be aimed more at children. People very fondly remembered being scared by Doctor Who - now the plots seem to me a little too adult.
Tom Baker was always my favourite Doctor Who (1963). He had a kind of quality, a sort of daft, fey quality which children absolutely loved.

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