---
name: "Robert Young"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/robert-young"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "16 March 1933"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "director"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-18T09:31:59.158748+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Robert Young

Director. Born 16 March 1933 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 16 March 1933, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK
- **Active:** 1981–1991
- **Also known as:** Robert W. Young, Robert William Young
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Young_(director), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3436568, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0950000/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/127716

## Fi1m on Robert Young

> A television director who trusts a wide shot and a good script, Robert Young did his best work by staying out of Alan Bleasdale's way on *G.B.H.*. The features that followed are not where to look; the television is.

The moment we keep coming back to in *G.B.H.* is not a close-up. Michael Murray, Robert Lindsay's council leader, is in the middle of a wide shot and the tics have started, and Robert Young does not cut in. He leaves the camera where it is and lets the crowd notice before Murray does. It is the plainest choice available, and it is the right one. On the evidence of the work we know best, Young's gift is knowing when to do nothing.

He came to it the long way. He began in the 1970s in horror, with *Vampire Circus* (1972), an episode of *Hammer House of Horror* and *Soldier's Home* (1977), and spent the 1980s as a working director of British television: *Minder*, *Bergerac*, *The Mad Death*, and many episodes of *Robin of Sherwood* (1984), where he is credited with bringing the series a mysticism it had not had before. That is journeyman work in the honourable sense of the word. Then, at the start of the 1990s, he turned to black comedy, first with *Jeeves and Wooster* (1990) and then with Alan Bleasdale's *G.B.H.* (1991), and found the thing he was good at.

*G.B.H.* is the one to see. Young shoots the day of action, the marches and pickets and meetings in smoke, like news footage, and when the violence arrives it is quick and ugly and over. He keeps Elvis Costello's music low and sad and out of the way of the shouting, so that it never tells us what to think about a man we already have too many thoughts about. We had spent hours laughing at Murray's tics, and the first time Young held the wide shot and let a roomful of faces change before Murray's did, we stopped laughing and were not sure what to do instead. The shot is nothing special. The decision not to help us is the direction.

The series is long, and its conspiracy plot is the weakest part of it, and a director carries some of that even when the script is Bleasdale's. The cinema that followed did not go as well. There was *Splitting Heirs* (1993), a feature comedy with John Cleese and Eric Idle, and then *Fierce Creatures* (1997), which he was given on the strength of *G.B.H.* and which another director was brought in to finish. He has gone on working, in television and in features such as *Eichmann* (2007) and *Blood Monkey* (2007), which we have not reviewed.

If you want to know what he can do, watch a city council come apart over seven episodes and notice how rarely the camera moves. Then notice that you never wanted it to.

## Biography

Robert Young is a British television and film director. He was born on 16 March 1933 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

In the early 1980s he directed episodes of the series *Bergerac*. He went on to direct the 1991 miniseries *G.B.H.*, for which he received a BAFTA nomination. His other television credits include episodes of *Robin of Sherwood* and *Jeeves and Wooster*.

Young's feature films include *Vampire Circus* (1972), *Splitting Heirs* (1993) and *Fierce Creatures* (1997). He has continued to direct television drama into the 2000s.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *G.B.H.* (1991), Fi1m 85, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/g-b-h.md)

## Complete filmography (37)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Curse of the Phoenix* (2014), Director, Producer
- *All at Sea* (2012), Producer, Director
- *Blood Monkey* (2007), Director
- *Eichmann* (2007), Director
- *Bye, Bye Harry* (2006), Director
- *The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells* (2001), series, Director
- *The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Espionage Escapades* (2000), Director
- *Camino de Santiago* (1999), series, Director
- *Captain Jack* (1999), Director
- *Jane Eyre* (1997), Director
- *Fierce Creatures* (1997), Director
- *The Wimbledon Poisoner* (1994), series, Director
- *Doomsday Gun* (1994), Director
- *White Goods* (1994), Director
- *Splitting Heirs* (1993), Director
- *Hostage* (1992), Director
- *Alive and Kicking* (1991), Director
- *G.B.H.* (1991), series, Director — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/tv/g-b-h.md)
- *Jeeves and Wooster* (1990), series, Director
- *Blore M.P.* (1989), Director
- *Screen One* (1989), series, Director
- *One Way Out* (1989), Director
- *Harry's Kingdom* (1987), Director
- *Three Wishes for Jamie* (1987), Director
- *The Worst Witch* (1986), Director
- *Sunday Premiere* (1986), series, Director
- *Robin of Sherwood* (1984), series, Director
- *The Mad Death* (1983), series, Director
- *Bergerac* (1981), series, Director
- *Hammer House of Horror* (1980), series, Director
- *Minder* (1979), series, Director
- *The World Is Full of Married Men* (1979), Director
- *20 Times More Likely* (1978), Director
- *Soldier's Home* (1977), Director
- *Keep It Up Downstairs* (1976), Director
- *Romance with a Double Bass* (1974), Director
- *Vampire Circus* (1972), Director

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/robert-young