Sherlock producer Beryl Vertue, aged 90

TV producer Beryl Vertue, whose company created the hit series Men Behaving Badly and Sherlock, has died aged 90.

The influential media executive “passed away peacefully” on Saturday surrounded by family.

Across her varied career, Vertue progressed from secretary to talent agent before establishing herself as an award-winning producer of TV and film through her company Hartswood Films.

Her daughters Sue and Debbie said: “It’s with the heaviest of hearts that we have to share the sad news that mum/beryl passed away peacefully last night. It wasn’t Covid, it was just her nearly 91-year-old body saying enough is enough.

“We were there so the passing was as good as one could hope for. Nothing wrong with her brain – earlier this week she was grilling us both about work.

“She wasn’t just our mum, she was our best friend, our mentor, our adviser, our role model, our holiday companion, our giggle-maker and our boss!

“She loved a glass of wine at lunchtime, she loved asking the common sense question, she was often the last person at a party, she didn’t suffer fools, she was fair, she was kind, she was fun, she was stubborn, in fact she was the total package and we will miss her beyond words.

“She was more than a mother to us – she was also a friend. To many in the industry she was more than a friend – she was often a mother.”

Vertue’s career started when she was asked by Steptoe And Son writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson to type up their scripts. When in the mid1950s the pair set up Associated London Scripts (ALS) with Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, she began finding work and negotiating fees for figures such as sitcom scriptwriter Johnny Speight and actorcomedian Frankie Howerd, in effect becoming their agent.

In 1967, music manager and impresario Robert Stigwood bought a majority stake in ALS and Vertue became managing director of his new company RSO.

She founded Hartswood Films in 1979 and it would go on to produce shows including the hit 1990s sitcom Men Behaving Badly starring Martin Clunes, Neil Morrissey, Leslie Ash and Caroline Quentin.

Hartswood was also behind the popular and critically acclaimed drama Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch, based on the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

She was made an OBE in 2000 and a CBE in 2016 for her work in the TV industry.

In 2004, she received Bafta’s Alan Clarke award for outstanding creative contribution to television.

And March 2012 saw her honoured with the lifetime achievement gong at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards.

In 2016, Cumberbatch presented her with a lifetime achievement prize at the Women In Film And TV Awards.

Beryl Vertue with her CBE in 2016.