Bernie Newnham

Scary Mr. Morahan …

Hugh Sheppard

Why ‘Scary’? 

Bernie Newnham

He could be scary almost intimidating if something was going wrong.

Hugh Sheppard

Perhaps I was lucky to have fond memories of him as directing “Z-Cars” and occasional encounters since at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, where he and his wife, Anna Carteret, were regulars.  A memory of Judi Dench in the viewfinder as a jeans-clad tearaway breaking through a window circa.1963 was, I feel sure, under his direction, but the Genome “Z-Cars” list hasn’t confirmed that as yet… 

“Last Word” did some justice to his shared departure date with Tim Pigott-Smith 14/04/2017; the reprise is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lk540  And Tim’s last BBC words were at the end of “Decline and Fall”’s final episode  (not a vehicle of unalloyed enjoyment).

David Brunt

The Judi Dench episode of “Z Cars” was directed by Robin Midgley.  However Chris Morahan did direct her in John Hopkins’ “Talking to a Stranger” four-part play in 1966.

Dave Plowman

That and the Nigel Barton plays are the few that stick in my mind from my early days in TV.

Odd that these days you have to have lots of action and special FX to be memorable. Well, for 15 minutes or so.

Roger Long

I did a film with him, Judi Dench and Michael Williams, about schizophrenia, sensitive and delicately violent.

We were plagued by hairs in the gate, probably  a faulty batch of stock or a dirty changing bag.

Chris stood over the clapper loader when he was changing a mag in the bag: he fogged the roll because he was very nervous and a trainee –  that was almost borderline bullying.  However when the stock was recalled and replaced we had no more hairs.

If you knew your job, he was terrifically supporting, we had a difficult noisy location, he was brilliant at pick ups he knew were obscured, to him film making was a vast jigsaw, if you knew his script you were home and dry.

Ken Russell was a bully, he always picked on the weakest on the set.  Chris was a real Gent who did not suffer fools.  Judi and Michael were fab , we had the wrap party at their Sussex cottage