Producer / Director
After Yvette graduated with a BA Hons first class in Social Science in 1979, she secured a production job at the BBC. But before starting, was blacklisted by the BBC (later revealed, alongside others, in an expose in the Observer).
THE BLACKLIST IN ROOM 105
Revealed: How MI5 vets BBC staff
The Observer, 18 August 1985, page 1.
EXCLUSIVE by David Leigh and Paul Lashmar
Revealed: How MI5 vets BBC staff
The Observer, 18 August 1985, page 1.
EXCLUSIVE by David Leigh and Paul Lashmar
THE OBSERVER has obtained concrete evidence for the first time of the way the security service, MI5, secretly controls the hiring and firing of BBC staff. Senior executives in the corporation have revealed to us a series of cases in which the careers of journalists, directors and broadcasters have been affected by MI5 blacklisting...
…things did not work out as happily for Yvette Vanson. In 1979 she was considered of sufficient talent and integrity to be hired to help make 'access' films in the BBC's community programmes unit. But days before she was to start, an embarrassed executive told her the job had been withdrawn. In a series of letters now held by The Observer, the BBC wrote telling her that 'the job should have gone to an internal candidate.' She was told she could apply for other jobs and offered £500 for her 'inconvenience.'
We traced one of the senior officials concerned who admitted that the BBC had been telling lies. She had been blacklisted by MI5 as 'an organiser of the Workers Revolutionary Party.' Indeed, she had been a member of the WRP when, five years earlier, she was an actress. Although she had subsequently left the party, she made no bones about her left-wing opinions.
The blacklisting is intended to be permanent. Last year, 10 years since Yvette Vanson stopped being a member of any political group, another BBC producer wished to hire her. An executive told us : 'Personnel said: "But wasn't she in the WRP?"' This time there were protests, the blacklisting was withdrawn and she has successfully worked for the BBC.
Yvette produced both Taking Liberties, a single documentary and Advocacy – a series, in 1984 for the BBC. Alongside her broadcast work, Yvette went on to make prize-winning training and charity films.
For 20 years, Yvette was a respected broadcast documentary producer/director, of award-winning contentious, political documentaries - with Tony Wardle, journalist and writer - and then on her own - including: Kentucky Fried Medicine; The Battle for Orgreave; Presumed Guilty; Two Boys from Bangkok; Making Advances, about sexual harassment at work. Winner of Royal Television Society Best Adult Education Series. Read more on FILMOGRAPHY
Later Yvette went on to be an Executive Producer of drama. Vanson Productions and Granada co-producing The Murder of Stephen Lawrence film, directed by Paul Greengrass. Winner of Best Single Drama BAFTA 2000. And Doomwatch, a science thriller with Working Title TV.
The Vanson Wardle Productions and Vanson Productions archive is housed at the British Film Institute.