James MacTaggart


James MacTaggart was a Scottish-born television producer, director and writer.

Biography

After an initial career as an actor, MacTaggart worked for BBC Radio in Scotland before moving into television, relocating to London around 1961, at the request of his friend scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin. MacTaggart aimed to break down the use of naturalism in television drama: "We were going to destroy naturalism", Kennedy Martin once said, "if possible, before Christmas".
After his involvement with such series as Storyboard, wholly written by Kennedy Martin, and Studio 4, MacTaggart was given the responsibility of producing the second season of The Wednesday Play. The Head of BBC Drama Sydney Newman later credited him with the series success. MacTaggart directed later productions during the anthology series' run and also instalments in its successor, Play for Today.
He joined Kestrel Productions, set up by Kenith Trodd, Tony Garnett and Ken Loach, which had an arrangement with the new ITV contractor London Weekend Television, and directed Dennis Potter's Moonlight on the Highway, with Ian Holm in the play's leading role, and Simon Gray's Pig in the Poke. The company's initial burst of activity was short-lived, and MacTaggart freelanced. His only feature film All the Way Up was released in 1970.
James MacTaggart died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1974 shortly after finishing Robinson Crusoe. A lecture in his memory is delivered annually at the Edinburgh International Television Festival each August. In an interview for The Guardian, published in October 2019, Ken Loach said of MacTaggart: "Jimmy was an iconoclast, constantly trying to knock down authority. The people giving the lecture are the authority that MacTaggart would have cut off at their knees. Now they use it as a mouthpiece for the establishment."