Esther Dean – Granadaland

Esther Dean describes how she came to join Granada

This is going to be quite a long story! I was always very stage-struck. I was brought up in Manchester. Even during the war I can remember going to the Robert Atkins, the open-air theatre from Regent’s Park coming up to the Whitworth Park. I think I was six and I saw Merchant of Venice…

Esther Dean describes the different stages in designing costumes for a programme

It was my job to clothe the show. So I would start with the script, or sometimes I would actually start with the book. I certainly did with Jewel (in the Crown). I read the book before I read the scripts. Not always because sometimes it could be confusing. You’d work it out on…

Esther Dean on her responsibilities once in production

Once you were in production, once you were filming or in the studio, what were your responsibilities then? Well, I liked to be around when the filming was going but obviously I couldn’t. But what I always liked to do was if there was an actor and they were wearing a new dress that hadn’t…

Esther Dean on the challenges of moving from black and white to colour tv

At the time when you first started work, television was in black and white. What kind of challenges did that bring for you? Well the big thing with black and white was something called the grey scale. You had to know. It all had to be done in shades of black, white and grey. If…

Esther Dean on how costume brings out a character

I think when we were talking about Hard Times, I don’t know if it was the same for Jewel, but you used costume as a way of placing someone in terms of time and perhaps their background, but also their position as a character, or how they felt. I always used to feel that…

Esther Dean talks about filming in India for ‘Staying On’ and ‘The Jewel in the Crown’

The first big one and the one that was done as a test to see if one could film in India was Staying On, with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson. We did it first but story-wise it’s about an old couple who have stayed on in India after partition, after independence. It was done really…

Esther Dean describes the challenges she faced to recognition and equal pay

Costume design was a female occupation, is that a true assumption? Yes. I mean, obviously there are male designers, but yes, it was, and we were very much underpaid. It was also part of the sweatshop thing that we were in a way the lowest of the low and when I first went up there,…

Esther Dean on the awards she received for her work

When I got the BAFTA for Hard Times, there hadn’t been craft awards before. I remember being very excited watching the awards when it was Country Matters and Derek Granger got the award for the best series, and we were jumping up in the air. I was in my flat but leaping round cheering that…

Esther Dean’s memories of Sidney Bernstein

Bernstein used to walk round the building. He always used to walk round the building in a white shirt with rolled up sleeves. So all the managers used to walk round the building with white shirts and rolled up sleeves. He always used to eat in the canteen. Most places had a posh place for…

Esther Dean on how Granada’s northern location impacted on its dramas

Certainly a lot of the shows that I did like Inheritance and Shabby Tiger, there were a lot of plays at the beginning, and Hard Times, where doing it up in the North made a big difference to being in the South. You needed to have the feel of being in the North, the weather…