Angus Wright (born Sunderland Co: Durham UK 11 April 1934) - British television producer; co-founder and managing director of The Britt Allcroft Company plc until his retirement in 1999.
Educated at Durham School, after serving two years national service in the Durham Light Infantry he read law at Trinity College, Oxford from 1954 to 1957. After graduation he joined the BBC as a sound studio manager, moving to BBC Television Light Entertainment and then to Southern Television, the commercial television franchise for the south and south east of England. He remained in Southampton where he worked in Jack Hargreaves’ children’s television department. As producer and director he was responsible for one of ITV’s longest-running children’s favourites ‘How’ as well as ‘Little Big Time and ‘Oliver in the Overworld’ starring Freddy Garrity and the Dreamers. With the change of the Southern TV franchise he stayed on at Southampton, becoming Head of Religious programmes first for TV South and then for Meridian Television.[1]
In 1984 he resigned from network television to join an independent production company which he had founded with his then partner Britt Allcroft, in 1981. In course of a freelance assignment, Allcroft met The Rev: Wilbert Awdry and together she and Wright acquired a license of television rights for Awdry’s ‘Railway Series’ of books featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. As creative producer, Allcroft commissioned David Mitton of The Clearwater Film Company to create films for the scripts which she developed from Awdry’s stories. Mitton’s brilliant live model animation films, using standard gauge 1 electric locomotives with interchangeable faces housing the famous swivelling eyes, which he animated in real time with a radio remote control, played a vital part in promoting Thomas the Tank Engine from a well-known but modestly popular children’s character to a children’s favourite known worldwide now for over 20 years. Allcroft achieved a major coup when she persuaded Ringo Starr to be the voice-over story-teller for her films. Starr’s gravelly Liverpool tones proved the perfect accompaniment to the quirky animation style.
With the support of Lewis Rudd, then of Central Television, the first series of Thomas the Tank Engine films launched on UK ITV in November 1984 to growing acclaim and demand for further films.
The acquisition of the necessary rights and venture capital finance, was achieved in 1985 and the fledgling company began the character licensing operation which was to prove the foundation of its fortune, leading to a London stock market flotation in 1996.
In 1986 the company was joined by Price Waterhouse accountant William Harris becoming Finance Director in 1988, and in 1989 Sue Sangway joined from Southampton Art Gallery, becoming Marketing Director in 1995.[2]
In 1989 after long negotiation, Allcroft and Wright established Thomas the Tank Engine on the US Public Television Network, home of children’s TV classic Sesame Street. The resulting success of the characters enabled them to be established in Japan on Fuji Television.
In just over ten years the Britt Allcroft Company grew from a two-person start-up to a worldwide operation with offices in New York City, Tokyo and Toronto. At the time of its launch on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 it was producing £6.3 million gross profit on annual turnover of £5.3million. Further productions followed: Britt Allcroft’s Magic Adventures of Mumfie in 1994; Wright himself acted as executive producer for Kate Canning’s ‘James the Cat’ and John Carey’s production of ‘The New Adventures of Captain Pugwash’ in 1998.
In 1999 at age 65, Wright retired from the company. He and Allcroft were divorced that year. He moved to France while she moved to California. In 2001, Wright and Sangway were married in France where they still live.
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