Roy Oxley

{{Short description|British production designer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}}

Roy Oxley (9 March 1905 – 1980){{citation needed|date=October 2022}} was a production designer at BBC Television who became famous after the BBC chose him to model for a photograph to be shown during their adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Oxley began working in set design in 1948, as an art decorator in the film London Belongs to Me.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} He also supervised the art decoration of the 1949 film, Passport to Pimlico.Ede, Laurie N. (2010). No Sets Please, We're British! Realist Traditions of British Film Production Design. Design Principles & Practice: An International Journal 4(4): 395–404, {{doi|10.18848/1833-1874/CGP/v04i04/37927}}

Oxley had been working for some years as set decorator for BBC when he was chosen, as an in-house joke, to model for the character of "Big Brother" in Nineteen Eighty-Four.Tom Fordy (8 May 2022). How the 'unadulterated horror' of Orwell created TV's first moral panic. The Sunday Telegraph, p. 24Graeme Burk, Robert Smith. [https://books.google.com/books?id=WT0FAQAAQBAJ Who's 50: The 50 Doctor Who Stories to Watch Before You Die—An Unofficial Companion], p. 91 (ECW Press; 2013) {{isbn|9781770411661}}David Ryan. George Orwell on Screen: Adaptations, Documentaries and Docudramas on Film and Television, pp. 30–31 (McFarland; 2018) {{isbn|9781476633138}} "Big Brother" was not actually a participating character in the programme; his face was only shown on various posters and billboards seen during the adaptation.

Oxley worked at several other productions as a production designer with the BBC, including seven episodes of the Douglas Wilmer version of Sherlock Holmes, various episodes of Z-Cars{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} and an adaptation for television of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood.Wrigley, Amanda (2014). Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, 'a Play for Voices' on Radio, Stage and Television. Critical Studies in Television 9(3): 77–88 {{doi| 10.7227/CST.9.3.8}} In 1969, he won a BAFTA Award for Production Design for his work of the BBC play The Portrait of a Lady.[http://awards.bafta.org/award/1969/television/design Television | Design in 1969], BAFTA (Retrieved 2 October 2022)