David Myerscough Jones
The son of Frederck C S Jones & Lilian Dorothy MyerscoughArthur
David Myerscough-Jones was born on September 15 1934 at Southport, Lancashire, and educated at Bickerton House school before enrolling at the local School of Art. At the Central School of Art in London he took a diploma with distinction in stage design, and in 1958 joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, where he worked for two years. He became resident designer at Bernard Miles's Mermaid Theatre in London between 1960 and 1966, before moving into television, joining the BBC and working firstly on the clerical comedy All Gas and Gaiters and episodes of the drama series The Expert.
His work for Doctor Who started in 1968. His first designs were for the story The Web of Fear, set in the London Underground, starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. When the BBC refused to pay the high fee demanded to film in a real Tube station, Myerscough-Jones had to replicate several of them in a television studio.
So accomplished was the result, and his replica so lifelike, that the BBC received a letter of complaint from London Underground alleging that filming had gone ahead on their property without permission.
In 1970 Myerscough-Jones returned to Doctor Who working on The Ambassadors of Death with Jon Pertwee by then in the title role. Two years later he worked on Day of the Daleks for which he designed rooms in a stately home as well as a futuristic control centre.
As a senior designer for BBC Television, Myerscough-Jones worked on many high-profile productions, including Don Shaw's celebrated Orde Wingate trilogy in 1976, and two plays in the BBC Shakespeare cycle in 1981, All's Well That Ends Well and A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Jonathan Miller. In the 1980s he designed sets for Sophocles' Theban Plays, another trilogy which was regarded as one of the most successful televised stagings of Greek drama.
Leaving the BBC to go freelance in 1990, Myerscough-Jones worked as designer on numerous stage productions including La Bohème, La Traviata and The Turn of the Screw for John Pascoe's company, the Bath and Wessex Opera. His sets for La Bohème were particularly striking; the transformation between Acts I and II so mesmerised the audience that it never failed to draw a round of applause. The American soprano singing Mimi, Renée Fleming, was so smitten with his design for the set of Act I that she added his original drawings to her private collection.
For a production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman in 1976, Myerscough-Jones created some outstanding set designs, including that of a large ghostly galleon; his work on this opera earned him a Royal Television Society award. His designs for an adaptation of Zola'sThérèse Raquin in 1980 earned him a Bafta design award. In 2005 his set designs for Peter Grimes were exhibited at the Aldeburgh Festival.
David Myerscough-Jones married, in 1963, Pelo Cumpston, with whom he had a son and three daughters.
David Myerscough-Jones was born on September 15 1934 at Southport, Lancashire, and educated at Bickerton House school before enrolling at the local School of Art. At the Central School of Art in London he took a diploma with distinction in stage design, and in 1958 joined the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, where he worked for two years. He became resident designer at Bernard Miles's Mermaid Theatre in London between 1960 and 1966, before moving into television, joining the BBC and working firstly on the clerical comedy All Gas and Gaiters and episodes of the drama series The Expert.
His work for Doctor Who started in 1968. His first designs were for the story The Web of Fear, set in the London Underground, starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. When the BBC refused to pay the high fee demanded to film in a real Tube station, Myerscough-Jones had to replicate several of them in a television studio.
So accomplished was the result, and his replica so lifelike, that the BBC received a letter of complaint from London Underground alleging that filming had gone ahead on their property without permission.
In 1970 Myerscough-Jones returned to Doctor Who working on The Ambassadors of Death with Jon Pertwee by then in the title role. Two years later he worked on Day of the Daleks for which he designed rooms in a stately home as well as a futuristic control centre.
As a senior designer for BBC Television, Myerscough-Jones worked on many high-profile productions, including Don Shaw's celebrated Orde Wingate trilogy in 1976, and two plays in the BBC Shakespeare cycle in 1981, All's Well That Ends Well and A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Jonathan Miller. In the 1980s he designed sets for Sophocles' Theban Plays, another trilogy which was regarded as one of the most successful televised stagings of Greek drama.
Leaving the BBC to go freelance in 1990, Myerscough-Jones worked as designer on numerous stage productions including La Bohème, La Traviata and The Turn of the Screw for John Pascoe's company, the Bath and Wessex Opera. His sets for La Bohème were particularly striking; the transformation between Acts I and II so mesmerised the audience that it never failed to draw a round of applause. The American soprano singing Mimi, Renée Fleming, was so smitten with his design for the set of Act I that she added his original drawings to her private collection.
For a production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman in 1976, Myerscough-Jones created some outstanding set designs, including that of a large ghostly galleon; his work on this opera earned him a Royal Television Society award. His designs for an adaptation of Zola'sThérèse Raquin in 1980 earned him a Bafta design award. In 2005 his set designs for Peter Grimes were exhibited at the Aldeburgh Festival.
David Myerscough-Jones married, in 1963, Pelo Cumpston, with whom he had a son and three daughters.
