Piers Haggard

Piers Haggard

Piers Inigo Haggard OBE (born 18 March 1939) is a British theatre, film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter. Haggard was born in London but grew up on a small farm in Clackmannanshire. He is the great-great-nephew of H. Rider Haggard, and is the son of the actor, poet and novelist Stephen Haggard who died in 1943. Haggard is married to stained glass artist Anna Sklovsky, with whom he has two children, the actress Daisy Haggard, and William Haggard who is an architect. He has four children by his first marriage, Sarah, Claire, Rachel and Philip. Haggard began his career as an assistant director at the Royal Court in 1960, then directed at Dundee Rep and Glasgow Citizens before joining the first National Theatre company in 1963 where he co-directed (John Dexter and Bill Gaskill) and assisted Laurence Olivier and Franco Zeffirelli. In 1965 he moved to BBC Television, directing plays for the anthology drama series Thirty-Minute Theatre in the 1960s, later working on the more prestigious anthology shows, Callan, Public Eye, Armchair Theatre (for ITV) and Play for Today (for the BBC). He directed for a variety of programmes throughout the 1970s, such as The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Love School, Love for Lydia and The Chester Cycle of Mystery Plays (1976).

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