John Bridcut

MA Literae Humaniores (Classics) 1971
Honorary Fellow
Film-maker
MVO

John Bridcut is an award-winning film-maker, who specialises in documentaries about classical music and contemporary history.

He joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1975, and worked in news and current affairs programmes there for twelve years. Since then he has been an independent producer, now with his own company, Crux Productions. His films include musical and psychological portraits of the singer Dame Janet Baker, the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the conductors Bernard Haitink, Herbert von Karajan and Sir Colin Davis. His most recent work was a filmed performance, in the Swiss Alps, of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise.

John Bridcut has also made a number of acclaimed royal films with the participation of Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III, and is currently producing an account of the first 50 years of the BBC. He is also completing a portrait of the composer, Michael Tippett, to match his previous films about Britten, Delius, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. He has published two books about Britten, and wrote a comprehensive report about impartiality for the BBC Trust in 2007.

While at Keble, John co-founded and ran two seasons of the Festival of English Song, featuring musicians from the university and beyond, which won attention in the national press. He also dabbled in journalism by writing for Isis and a fortnightly college publication, Aurion, which was duplicated on Roneo stencils—the best technology that the Alumni and Development Office could offer in those days.