Verity Lambert

Verity Lambert

Verity Ann Lambert OBE (27 November 1935 – 22 November 2007) was an English television and film producer. She is best known as the founding producer of the science-fiction series Doctor Who, a programme which has become a part of British popular culture, and for her association with Thames Television. Her many credits include Adam Adamant Lives!, The Naked Civil Servant, Rock Follies, Minder, Widows, G.B.H., Jonathan Creek and Love Soup.

Lambert began working in television in the 1950s, and continued to work as a producer until the year she died. After leaving the BBC in 1969, she worked for other television companies, notably Thames Television and its Euston Films offshoot in the 1970s and 80s. She also worked in the film industry, for Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, and from 1985 ran her own production company, Cinema Verity.

The British Film Institute's Screenonline website describes Lambert as "one of those producers who can often create a fascinating small screen universe from a slim script and half-a-dozen congenial players."

Women were rarely television producers in Britain at the beginning of Lambert's career. When she was appointed to Doctor Who in 1963 she was the youngest producer, and only female drama producer, working at the BBC. The website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications hails her as "not only one of Britain's leading businesswomen, but possibly the most powerful member of the nation's entertainment industry ... Lambert has served as a symbol of the advances won by women in the media". She died the day before the 44th anniversary of the first showing of Doctor Who.