The Honorary Graduand: David Rose

The Orator: Professor Andrew Spicer

David Rose is to be awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Art.

A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, David Rose worked at Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet before joining BBC Television Drama in 1954 as producer and director. He spent 27 years with the Corporation developing drama in a variety of series and individual programmes. In the 1960s, Rose produced Z Cars and was also responsible for the spin-off series Softly Softly. In the early seventies, he moved to the newly created BBC Pebble Mill studios where he supported well-known script writers such as Arthur Hopcraft, David Rudkin and Peter Terson, and nurtured emergent writers such as Alan Bleasdale, Ian McEwan and Willy Russell, by commissioning dramas about regional Britain.

In 1981 he left Pebble Mill to become one of the key founding members of Channel Four Television. As Senior Commissioning Editor for Fiction, directly responsible to the Chief Executive Jeremy Isaacs, Rose was the driving force behind the landmark ‘Film on Four’ strand of programming, producing critically applauded films such as Angel (d. Neil Jordan, 1982), Paris, Texas (d. Wim Wenders, 1984), My Beautiful Laundrette (d. Stephen Frears, 1985), Mona Lisa (d. Jordan, 1986) and Distant Voices, Still Lives (d. Terence Davies, 1988). At the Cannes Film Festival in 1987 Rose collected an award on behalf of Channel 4 that recognised its outstanding contribution to international cinema.

In 1991 he left to launch his own production company and is now a teacher and adviser to young directors, writers and producers.

The Honorary Degree is awarded in recognition of Davis Rose’s outstanding contribution to film and television.