Verity Lambert - Legacy

Legacy

In the 2002 New Year's Honours list Lambert was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to film and television production, and the same year she received BAFTA's Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television. She died of cancer five days before her 72nd birthday. She was due to have been presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television Awards the following month.

Her last work was to produce the second series of Love Soup. A dedication, to her memory, was shown after the first episode was aired on March 1, 2008.

In the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Human Nature", the Doctor (as John Smith) refers to his parents as Sydney and Verity, a tribute to both Newman and Lambert. She is further honored in the episode 'The End of Time" when the Doctor visits the great-granddaughter of Matron Joan Redford from the episode "Human Nature", (played by the original actress Jessica Hynes) the human love interest he gives up to reclaim his Time Lord memories. This character is named Verity Newman. And on Christmas Day 2007, in the Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned", a dedication, to her memory, was shown at the end of the episode.

An unofficial created by two students (Thomas Cowell & Joey Guy) entitled "Verity: Men, Bitches & Daleks" was created about Verity and charts her struggle in getting Doctor Who on TV. It focuses on her relationship with Sydney Newman and results in his admission that hiring her was the best thing he ever did.

The 2008 DVD release of "The Time Meddler", as well as containing the last commentary she made before her death, also contains a short documentary feature "Verity Lambert Obituary" described as "A concise essay looking back over the career of one of Doctor Who's co-creators."