Production Team

Veteran Director Cyril Coke had previously drawn critical acclaim with several Play's of the Week for Associated Rediffusion including Incident (TX: 22/01/60, the debut play of Arden Winch), Night of the Big Heat (TX: 14/06/60, adapted by Giles Cooper from the novel by John Lymingon), Countdown At Woomera (TX: 13/06/61, scripted by Henry Bentinck), Darkness At Noon (TX: 15/01/63 - also adapted by Coke from the novel by Arthur Koestler) and Acquit Or Hang (TX: 6/01/64, scripted by Stanley Miller).

In 1967 Coke and fellow directors Peter Graham Scott and Joan Kemp Welch had applied for the transmission license in the Yorkshire area, but their bid was turned down. Meanwhile Coke continued to work on a freelance basis for both stations with notable contributions to Mystery and Imagination (The Devil's Piper - TX: 11/04/68), Counterstrike (Nocturne - TX: 29/09/69), Ian Hendry's short lived sci-fi series The Adventures of Don Quick (The Love Reflector - TX: 21/11/70) and The Incredible Robert Baldick (TX: 02/10/72).

After The Lotus Eaters Coke tended to work in the areas of bodice-rippers and period drama with work on Upstairs, Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street and Pride and Prejudice. Later credits include the series Malice Aforethought (TX: 15/03/7/79 - 5/04/79) starring Hywel Bennett, an episode of The Agatha Christie Hour (The Mystery of the Blue Jar TX: 19/10/82) and the four-part BBC thriller The Consultant (1983) that again starred Hywel Bennett.

Douglas Gaston Sydney Camfield (died 27 January 1984) was an accomplished director working in television from the 1960's to the 1980's. His programme credits include Z-Cars, Paul Temple, Van der Valk, The Sweeney, Shoestring, The Professionals, The Nightmare Man and the BBC dramatisation of Beau Geste.

Camfield is particularly well known for his work on Doctor Who and was production assistant on its earliest serials, The Pilot Episode, An Unearthly Child and Marco Polo. Camfield went on to direct many other stories in its first thirteen years. He sought to get Philip Hinchcliffe to commission his script for the programme, which involved aliens, the French Foreign Legion and would have killed off the character of Sarah Jane Smith. However, this story was not produced, and Sarah left the programme in The Hand of Fear.

Camfield was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps in 1951 during his National Service. Later the same year he transferred to the West Yorkshire Regiment (Territorial Army). He was promoted Lieutenant in 1952. He left in 1956.

In later life he suffered from a heart ailment, and died of a heart attack. He was married to the actress Sheila Dunn, whom he cast in the Doctor Who stories The Daleks' Master Plan, The Invasion and Inferno.

Bio details from the old The Troubleshooters website

Anthony Read originally trained to be an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama and it was there that he realised his ambition to be a writer. His training was cut short by National Service and on demob he worked as a journalist and in public relations.

Determined to break into TV he applied, but was turned down, for the post of script editor on The Avengers. However he gained work at the BBC and apart from script editing The Troubleshooters Read also held the same post during 1978-1979 on Doctor Who. As a writer Read contributed to The Professionals, The Omega Factor, Sapphire And Steel, Chocky and Hammer House of Horror. He also created the series One By One.

Sadly Read died in November 2015.
In a retrospective on Read's career for Doctor Who Magazine Marcus Hearn wrote of The Lotus Eaters:

"The dynamic cast and exotic location helped to make the show a hit, but writer David Fisher remembers that it wasn't plain sailing. 'Tony was never very happy about The Lotus Eaters,' he says. 'Nor was anybody else. It was a very dodgy idea, I think, and everybody felt it. He would say "I'm working on this godforsaken thing - would you like to come and write some of it?' And he was such a nice man I don't think anyone ever turned him down."
The alcoholic Hendry was now harder to handle than he had been during the more innocent days of Theatre Unlimited (a touring theatre company Read had formed with Ian Hendry early in their careers) and Tony bowed out of The Lotus Eaters after the first series."