This week marks 20 years since the death of Arena Series Editor Nigel Finch. Along with Anthony Wall, he was an instrumental character in the development of Arena’s distinctive style, directing many classics such as My Way, Chelsea Hotel and The Private Life of the Ford Cortina. Among those who knew Nigel, it is his vibrant personality as much as his films that is vividly remembered to this day. Nigel Williams wrote in his obituary, “When I first met him, working on the BBC Arts programme Arena in the early seventies, he seemed to hail from some unimaginably exotic location. He had the conversational sharpness of someone who has been used to caf society from an early age and, as he swung down the corridors to his cutting-room, his brightly coloured leather jacket gave him the air of a hero of a comic book or of some tropical bird whose plumage, defying the safety of camouflage, exists to let you know he’s there”. This clip taken from ‘Arena at 30’ shows Anthony Wall, among other Arena faces, remembering Nigel.
Television writer Howard Schuman delivered a fitting tribute to Nigel, describing him as ‘one of the most original and brilliant talents in television’ in this introduction to his classic BAFTA award-winning ‘Chelsea Hotel’. First transmitted in 1981, this documentary looks at New York’s famous Chelsea Hotel, a legendary haven for some of the 20th Century’s greatest talent, from Mark Twain to Dylan Thomas. This film epitomised Arena’s new style of television making, breaking the mould of what an arts documentary had been up to that point.
Nigel Finch and Anthony Wall ran the Arena strand together from 1985 until Nigel’s death in 1995. A former Arena PA, Belinda Phillips, remembers working with the pair, describing the creative ‘telepathy’ between them. In 1989, Nigel conceived the memorable Arena film ‘The Other Graham Greene’ as a means of simultaneously making a film about the novelist and exploring the extent to which real lives are always fictionalised in film and biographies. Here, Nigel discusses his first meeting with Graham Greene at the Ritz Hotel in London.
Kurt Vonnegut was so taken by Nigel's film of him that he sent this letter on 5th June 1983. He tells Nigel, 'you are an important artist, and I will follow your career from now on eagerly, certain that you will go from strength to strength'.
Nigel died on Valentines Day 1995. His memorial service was held on Mardi Gras Day that year - a fitting date given the ambitious four hour live transmission of Mardi Gras celebrations that Arena undertook in 1988, which Nigel directed alongside Anthony Wall, Mary Dickinson and J.Gabour - at which many of his friends and colleagues paid tribute to him. Alan Yentob described his '...most singular quality was his openness. Everything for him had promise. He was a stranger to banality and even to boredom. That's why he was such good company'. Here, Anthony Wall talks about the great work he did for Arena over the years, followed by a montage of clips from his films.
Follow this link to read Nigel Williams' 1995 obituary in full
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-nigel-finch-1573483.html
