MICHAEL HOWELLS

21 Jul

(13 January 1957 - 20 July 2018)

You may never have heard of the production and fashion designer Michael Howells, who has died aged 61, but his work on films and for television will be familiar to many. His last work was for the award-winning ITV series Victoria, which was outstanding as far as the production designs were concerned. Before that he designed Charles Sturridge’s TV movie Churchill’s Secret with Michael Gambon as Winston. Period designs seemed to be a speciality with Howells and among the films he designed were Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow, Princess Caraboo with Phoebe Cates, Bright Young Things, based on Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, An Ideal Husband with Cate Blanchett, Fairy Tale: A True Story, Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Miss Julie, Talk of Angels and Blackwood. Michael Howells also designed the TV series of Shackleton and The Game. Early on in his career he also worked with Peter Greenaway on The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, with Claude Miller on The Accompanist, and with John Duigan on Wide Sargasso Sea. The Michael Howells Studios also covered theatre designs, fashion and exhibitions for many of the top fashion houses.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

MICHAEL HOWELLS

BERNARD HEPTON

SHINOBU HASHIMOTO