Pip (Philip) Burley

Pip (Philip) Burley
https://pipburley.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/PIP-AT-PIANO-800x1000.jpg https://pipburley.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/PIP-AT-PIANO-800x1000.jpg Pip Burley at a piano
Born	1943 Croydon
🏫 Education	Whitgift School, London College of Printing
💼 Occupation	Businessman, television producer, musician
Notable work	The Darling Buds of May, A Touch of Frost, Uncle Silas, Pride of Africa
👩 Spouse(s)	Christine Burley
👶 Children	Victoria Burley (b. 1976), Elisabeth (Libby) Nicholas (b. 1979), Georgina Scott (b. 1981)
👴 👵 Parent(s)	Victor George Burley, Blanche Burley
🌐 Website	https://pipburley.com/

Pip Burley (aka Philip). is a businessman, television producer and musician best known for his work on TV drama series The Darling Buds of May (1991-1993), A Touch of Frost (1994-2010), and My Uncle Silas (2001-2003) produced for ITV. He also produced the film “Pride of Africa” (1997) starring Robert Powell. In 1991 he won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Theme Tune for a TV or Radio Production for his composition ‘Perfick’ for The Darling Buds of May

Pip Burley was born in 1943 in Croydon. His father, Victor Burley, was a mechanical engineer. Pip went to Whitgift School in Croydon, Surrey, where it was assumed he would be educated to follow in his father's footsteps. When his mother, Blanche, died in 1960, and with A-Levels in Physics, Maths and Chemistry, he was due to take up an engineering place at Bristol University. Instead, he stayed at school for a further year and decided to attempt a career as a pianist, a hobby since the age of four.

Largely self-taught, Pip found himself in demand both as a singer and keyboard player and was soon performing with Croydon-based band "The Quiet Five" and with a cabaret group called "The Semitones", who caught the eye of West End Bandleader Sydney Lipton. By the end of the sixties Pip was playing with most of the big bands of the era including Sydney Lipton, Ken Mackintosh, Joe Loss and Claude Cavalotti.

In his middle twenties a twin career beckoned as a graphic designer, and before long he set up his own design business working freelance for publishers and advertising agencies.

In the early eighties he co-founded the Quadrant Group, which embraced magazine publishing, graphic and corporate design, advertising and promotions. During this period he remained active as a composer and writer working mainly for Thames Television on series such as "Musicround" and "Database" as well as collaborating with Michael Bentine on his series Potty Time. He also composed music for numerous TV and radio commercials.

In 1988 he sold the business in order to go back into the television industry full-time. He founded Excelsior Group Productions with Richard Bates, one of the early independent production companies specialising in long-form television drama. The company's first commission, "The Darling Buds of May", made in collaboration with Yorkshire Television, starring David Jason and the young Catherine Zeta-Jones, went straight to the top of the ratings with an audience of 18 million, making it one of the most popular TV shows of the 1990s.

Two years later, Excelsior went on to devise and produce "A Touch of Frost", a starring vehicle for David Jason, which ran for nearly sixteen years. Both series have sold all over the world and have been constantly repeated.

Excelsior also devised and produced "My Uncle Silas", a series of half-hour adaptations of the short stories by H.E. Bates, starring Albert Finney in the title role.

As well as being Chairman and CEO of Excelsior, Pip has been a director of Suffolk Life Annuities, a company which he co-founded and which was sold to Legal & General in 2008. At present he is a non-executive director of nDreams, who specialise in VR software, a Chair and non-exec director of Atom Republic, owners of Atom Universe a virtual world and a director of Plasmaclean, a Stockport based engineering company developing and manufacturing advanced clean air technologies.

Pip was Chief Barker of the Variety Club of Great Britain in 1999, the charity's 50th Anniversary year and is currently Chair of Variety Golf , the country’s largest charity golf society. He was Artistic Director of the Polesden Lacey Festival for the National Trust (1998-2003) and has been President and Chairman of the Whitgiftian Association (2011-13). He served as Founder Chair of Governors of The Quest Academy in Croydon for five years and was responsible for the devising and implementation of a £16m rebuilding programme, completed in 2014.

Pip is married to Christine, has three daughters and eight grandchildren.

Pip’s Other Works

Books Views from the Back of a Taxi, (2007) Briefest Encounters, (2016)

Plays “No Exit for Students” (1993) “Don’t Mess With the Curtain Cords” (1995) “Viva La Costa” (2008)

Musical The Slipper and the Rose (Stage Adaptation)

References

This article "Pip Burley" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Pip Burley. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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