Ben Bartlett: A Life in Music, Storytelling and Friendship

Tributes pour in for Chiswick-based composer


Ben Bartlett dancing with his wife Sonia

April 28, 2026

Ben Bartlett, the Chiswick-based BAFTA-winning composer whose music shaped some of the most memorable moments in British television, has died at the age of 61 from lung cancer. His passing leaves a profound silence in the worlds of screen music, theatre, and contemporary composition, but also in the lives of those who knew him as a husband, father, colleague and friend.

His breakthrough came with the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs, a landmark production whose emotional power was inseparable from his score. The music “had everything… mystery, grandeur and excitement,” a quality that producer Tim Haines said transformed the series from visually impressive to deeply affecting. “While graphics engaged people’s brains, Ben grabbed their hearts,” Haines recalled.

That gift for emotional clarity and dramatic instinct would become his signature. For fourteen series of ITV’s Vera, Bartlett’s music became part of the show’s identity. Kate Bartlett, Creative Director at Silverprint Pictures, said his themes were “as much a part of what the audience love about it as the beautiful landscape and Vera’s hat and raincoat.”

Across a career spanning decades, Bent moved effortlessly between genres. He brought audacity and wit to Mad Dogs, a Mancini-esque swagger to The Secret World of Michael Fry, stripped-back poignancy to The Mark of Cain, and a distinctive emotional intelligence to The Loch, Lucky Man, The Tunnel, Lucan, and The Trials of Jimmy Rose. Director Marc Munden remembered his ability to “cook up a parallel world in the music that was somehow just right,” whether through backwards horn sections, rattling ukuleles or unexpected harmonic turns.

Ben Bartlett, second right, at an event at The Chiswick Cinema
Ben Bartlett, second right, at an event at The Chiswick Cinema

His work was repeatedly recognised by his peers, earning an Ivor Novello nomination for Fiona’s Story and multiple Royal Television Society nominations. Beyond the screen, he composed for the concert hall and theatre, including the mini-opera El Tigre and the piano work Caprice, performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Ben was also a mentor and teacher, lecturing at the Royal College of Music, Leeds Conservatoire and the National Film and Television School. He served as a judge for BAFTA and the Ivor Novello Awards, supporting emerging composers with the same generosity he brought to his collaborations.

For the Chiswick community, Bartlett was not only a celebrated composer but a familiar face—dancing with Sonia at Ballet4Life classes, and attending nearly every performance she was in over two decades.

Ballet4Life founder Donna Schoenherr said, "Our biggest dream/conversation was springing from the urge for him to create a bespoke score for a new dance piece that I would create for Ballet4Life or for our related dance charity Move into Wellbeing®. We spoke endlessly about it and then due to our busy lives, sadly this project never did get off the ground.

"Ben cultivated and possessed warmth, humour, grace, creativity, and intelligence. He was a fabulous friend, husband to Sonia, and father to their children, and a magical music maker."

But the centre of his life was his family. His wife Sonia and their children Ivana and Blake described him as “the most loving, caring father and husband… intelligent, witty, always fun to be with,” someone deeply in touch with his emotions and unwavering in his support for those he loved. “May him and his beautiful music live on,” they said.

Tributes from colleagues speak not only of his talent but of his warmth. Director Adrian Shergold, who worked with him for more than twenty years, recalled their long creative partnership and the heartbreak of learning that Ben was too ill to complete the score for Shergold’s son Louis’s latest film. Will Nicholson, Series Producer on Vera, said the team was “deeply saddened” and that Ben’s contribution to the show “cannot be quantified.”

His generosity extended beyond the arts. Cornwall Air Ambulance paid tribute to his work on their Helicopter Appeal and the award-winning Help Holly campaign. Vice President Barbara Sharples remembered his empathy when meeting those helped by the charity, and how he “poured that emotion into Blades in the Sky,” the piece he composed for them.

Those who knew him personally speak of a man who was mischievous, warm, and endlessly curious. Darrell Alexander of Cool Music described him as “gloriously naughty in the best possible way,” someone who met life’s challenges “with courage and quiet dignity.”

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