Jonathan Stedall, who has died of cancer aged 84, brought a gentle, sensitive style of documentary-making to TV with his own films and thought-provoking programmes presented by John Betjeman, Malcolm Muggeridge and Alan Bennett. He spent 27 years at the BBC (1963-90) after beginning his television career with ITV, where he directed Betjeman’s West Country (1962-63), presenting impressions of Sidmouth, Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Devizes and other places in the region.
Two decades later, at the BBC, in the retrospective series Time With Betjeman (1983), the poet – by then poet laureate – a year before his death, reflected on his career with extracts from his TV work and an interview with Stedall. Asked if he had any regrets, Betjeman famously replied: “I haven’t had enough sex.”
