Clive Doig started his career in television with the BBC at the age of 18 years.

He was a member of Television Technical Operations as a Junior Probationary Technical Operator and assigned to a camera crew, where he worked in the old BBC Lime Grove and Riverside Studios and later the new TVCentre Studios on many famous TV programmes as a cable-basher, a dolly operator, a boom operator and finally a camera operator. He attended the three month BBC engineer's course in Evesham where amongst other adventures he bought a boat, which promptly sank. While still with Crew 4 he started vision-mixing as replacement for Rachel Blayney, and then became the crew vision-mixer full time cutting and mixing a large variety of programmes. All Vision Mixers then transferred from camera crews and Technical Operations and joined Studio Management group, being re-designated as production services rather than technical operators. Clive became one of ten vision-mixers in the same service group which provided floor managers, assistant floor managers and call-boys (renamed floor assistants as there were a number of girls who took up the posts!!) in all types of BBC productions.

He remained a vision-mixer and became one of the senior vision-mixers working on major plays, situation comedies, music and arts programmes, and eventually ran the Vision-Mixers' and P.A's training course, introducing a method of on-site training and practice alongside established staff working on actual programmes going out 'live' or being recorded. This was achieved by slaving the camera and sound outputs of those studios into adjacent training studios and being able to listen to talkback, but in no way affecting the outcome of the show being slaved.

Clive then worked as both an AFM and a FM on attachment within Studio Management before completing a year's attachment to Light Entertainment as a Production Assistant (with floor managing duties on Variety and Entertainment Shows). He was then offered a permanent job as a Production Assistant (with film and studio directing duties) in BBC Children's Programmes. The first programme he worked on was called "Vision On" (see credits) and he was assigned to direct Programme 4 of the first series he worked on. The agreement was that Clive would share the studio directing with other directors and the producer Patrick Dowling. However from Programme 4 onwards on that first series, Clive directed every single Vision On Programme, including special filmed and foreign versions, for the next seven years until the programme came to an end in 1976. For his list of directorial, writing and producing credits from then on see credits.

Vision On, that first year, won the coveted BAFTA award for Specialised Series beating Dr Bronowski's acclaimed "Ascent of Man" in so-doing, as well as the specific Children's BAFTA Harlequin Award.

In the fourth series it again won a BAFTA Harlequin Award for Best Children's Programme. Meanwhile it had also picked up the Prix Jeunesse International Children's Programme Award as well as many others and the programme sold throughout the world, mainly because of its purely visual content and ability to cater for the hard of hearing, as well as for its anarchic surreal humour and the art and design of its star, Tony Hart.

Clive Doig continued to direct and then produce in Children's Programmes and started to create his own specialised Children's entertainment and informational programmes, notably "Jigsaw", which won him the very first full BAFTA for Children's Programmes as well as the Harlequin Award; and "Eureka", a series about inventions of common place objects which was twice BAFTA nominated, and ran for four years on both BBC2 and BBC1, and many others for Children's Programmes as well as two series for prime-time Saturday evening TV, such as "Lucky Numbers"

Having become one of the department's senior creative producers he left the BBC to go independent and set up his own Independent Production Company called Brechin Productions, in order to make more programmes for both BBC and ITV in his specialised genres of Childrens and Entertainment.

Within the forty-six years he has been in the business, Clive has been lucky enough, man and boy before he created his own programmes, to have worked on such ground-breaking shows as:

For Drama Group: Age of Kings, War of the Roses, Who Me and Z Cars, Doctor Who (Clive was the vision-mixer for the first three years of this cult show, from the very first programme starring William Hartnell, and was instrumental in inventing the howl-round visual titles on studio cameras, before the idea was adopted and adapted as full blown animation), Hedda Gabler, Charlie's Aunt, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, The Master Builder, The Insect Play, Maigret, Simenon, Adam Adamant, Softly Softly, The Mikado, Fat of the Land,

The very first programmes he ever played a minor part in in the studio was the last episode of The Quatermass Experiment and Mother Courage where he was assigned to the famed cameraman Peter Frieze-Green's crew.

For Light Entertaiment: Hancock's Half Hour, Taxi, The Likely Lads (Clive also vision-mixed all the first two series for Dick Clement), Dad's Army (Clive was the vision-mixer for David Croft on many of his famous sit-coms, especially this one and also worked as a floor manager on the third series), Until Death Us Do Part (again Clive worked on the very first series as a vision-mixer with Dennis Main Wilson as producer/director), Terry & June, Comedy Playhouse, It's a Square World, Hugh and I, etc. etc.

AND: Not Only But Also (Clive was AFM for Dick Clement on the second series of this famous Peter Cook and Dudley Moore entertainment)

For Music Department: Gala Performance (Clive was a regular vision-mixer on this arts and music programme, including the famous Margot Fonteyn - Rudolf Nureyev appearance), Music For You (with Eric Robinson), Juke Box Jury, Gadzooks It's All Happening, Top of the Pops, Big Band Show, Cliff Richard Special, Sammy Davis Junior Special, Crackerjack (as an LE Production Assistant), the first Barry Humphries Show (as an LE Production Assistant), Dusty Springfield Special (ditto),

Election Broadcasts (as supervising vision-mixer), Grandstand, Tonight, Twenty-four Hours, The Sky at Night, the Epilogue.

Other departments that had a profound influence on his later creative format work were Schools Television and Children's Programmes. In many of Clive's own programmes he introduced anarchic humour and surreal imagery to bring highly academic and esoteric subjects to a wide young audience. His was not and never has been a didactic approach, always believing that information couched in fun, zaniness and enthusiasm is still educative, without the audience being aware of it. His purpose in all his programmes was to make young and old to think further from the programme, outside the box.

Clive Doig has been married three times, has three daughters, three grand-daughters and one grandson.

He is of Swedish/Scottish extraction, was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon and as well as compiling puzzles and creating television programmes has an addictive interest in all sport, statistics, lists, postcards, stamps, vesta boxes, fine porcelain, the theatre, puzzles, word reference books, languages and is an accomplished amateur philologist. He used to play rugby, hockey, tennis, squash and darts to a reasonable standard and still plays tennis regularly to a much lower standard.

Clive Doig has an ability for exaggerated story telling, but his many famed anecdotes, especially those emanating from the BBC are all true.

Please browse through his Book of Anecdotes.

As well as being a creative producer in TV Clive has also made a name for himself with his regular feature "Trackword" in the Radio Times, and puzzles in many other publications, including 15 of his own puzzle books. He has produced and published three board games and also produced for the theatre Iranian plays in support of exiled-Iranians.

Also for anyone in the industry interested please scan through his list of Unsuccessful Proposals. 

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