about the author

DISTINGUISHED BBC CAREER

Roy Davies

In a BBC career spanning 30 years, Roy Davies rose from a general trainee in London to write, produce and direct many acclaimed documentaries for the BBC2 network archaeology and history series Chronicle. He specialised in ground-breaking investigative historical documentaries that challenged popular beliefs.

Roy was nominated for a BAFTA in 1982 as Executive Producer of the outside broadcast team which covered the raising of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s ill-fated warship.

In 1985, Roy first produced and was then appointed editor of the history series Timewatch which he turned from a monthly magazine programme into the single-programme format which is now a household name in Britain.

During his editorship of the series, Timewatch was nominated for an ACE television award (Award for Cable Excellence) in Hollywood in 1991.

Two years later he was appointed Editor History Series in the new Documentaries department before becoming Head of Factual Programmes at BBC Wales in Cardiff.

Roy resigned from the BBC in 1995 to become a freelance writer and independent producer.

For a full list of documentary credits, click here...

GROUND-BREAKING PROGRAMMES

GENESIS OF THE DA VINCI CODE

Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci

Shortly after joining the Chronicle series in the early 1970s, Roy made two documentaries with the writer and presenter Henry Lincoln about the extraordinary story of a French priest who seemed to have found parchments in an altar pillar in his church which pointed to a great treasure.

The priest was Berengere Sauniere, the village was Rennes le Chateau. The first programme was The Priest, the Painter and the Devil (1974) and the second The Shadow of the Templars (1979).

The documentaries led to the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail and eventually to a host of other researchers and authors embarking on an historical odyssey that ultimately resulted in The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

D-DAY AND PEARL HARBOR PROGRAMMES

Ships burning in Pearl Harbor after the attack

Roy’s other historical documentaries include Destination D-Day, an investigation into the top secret planning behind the invasion of France in 1944, and he later made Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor using testimony from secret sources to argue Roosevelt knew in advance of the Japanese planned ambush of the Pacific Fleet, which catapulted the US into the Second World War.

He also produced and directed The Longbow, a vivid account of the critical importance of English archery in land battles against the French.

CLASSIC DETECTIVE STORY

'Prince of Lilies' plaster relief at the end of the Corridor of Processions

In the middle of such pioneering documentary making, Roy also wrote, produced and directed a classic detective story called The Decipherment of Linear B.

This laid bare the enmity between the renowned Sir Arthur Evans and the professional archaeologist Alan Wace who had dared to suggest Evans was wrong in his theories of the development of Mediterranean civilisations.

In the programme the story was played out against the backdrop of a youthful Michael Ventris cracking the previously impenetrable clay tablet script of ancient Greece.

August 2008 – 150th anniversary of publication of Wallace’s theory of evolution

4th September 2008
meet the author @ Waterstone's Bookshop, Richmond, London

7th October 2008
meet the author @ London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Rd, London

14th October 2008
meet the author @ Natural History Museum, London

22nd November 2008
meet the author @ Linnean Society, Piccadilly, London

27th January 2009
meet the author @ Natural History Society, Northampton

February 2009 – 200th anniversary of birth of Charles Darwin

2nd February 2009
meet the author @ Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath

November 2009 – 150th anniversary of publication of On the Origin of Species in London