Michael Imison (born 9 February 1935) is a British retired television director and literary agent, one of the original directors of the Doctor Who series.
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Imison started his career at the BBC working for the Script Department. Initial successes included directing 'Magnyfcence' by John Skelton at the Tower Theatre, Canonbury in May 1963.[1]
In 1966 he became one of the directors of the Doctor Who series. Directing the Doctor Who series The Ark, Imison is believed to have helped create the Monoids.[2] The Ark was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 5 to 26 March 1966. The story is set in the 57th "Segment of Time", which the Doctor calculates to be approximately AD 10,000,000.
Talking in an interview back in 1974 Imison said:
"The Monoids were my idea. I can't remember what they were called originally. They were fairly indefinite creatures, but I had this idea, which I thought was brilliant, of having actors with ping-pong balls in their mouths so that they could play these one-eyed creatures, which would appear to have a living eye. I thought this would be a great thing for BBC Enterprises to market, but of course it was a total damp squib! I don't remember what else I got them to change. Having worked quite a lot as a script editor I was quite happy to get people to rewrite".[4]
Later in 1966, he acted as Story Editor on the second series of anthology series Out of the Unknown.
Later in his career Imison became a literary agent. His company has now been incorporated into Alan Brodie Representation Ltd. However it was whilst based in Islington, North London that Michael concentrated on promoting authors and poets from the former Eastern Bloc. His contacts at the Almeida Theatre, where lesser-known writers were promoted, proved invaluable during this period.
Imison is married to the prominent educator Tamsyn Imison and he now spends much of his time with his family at their country retreat in Southwold, Suffolk.[3] Apart from chairing the Noel Coward Society and working for the British Humanist Association,[4] he has on occasions worked as a Salman Rushdie look-alike for the London based, "Splitting Images" agency.
