Blog posts by year and monthMay 2010
Posts (11)
Anne Lister's diaries: From page to screen
I had never heard of Anne Lister until she popped up in an email, one slow Friday afternoon. Oxford Film and Television were seeking a writer to dramatise her diaries and had attached a potted biography. She was impressive: an independent, self-educated landowner, living in Halifax in the early ...
BBC One is going High Definition
For some time now, the number of programmes we make in High Definition (HD) has been growing. Last month, we began broadcasting Ashes To Ashes, Doctor Who, Graham Norton, and Young Musician Of The Year for the first time, as well as Springwatch's first appearance in HD, which starts next week. ...
My journey with Stephen Fry and Wagner
I'm approaching the end of a journey which began nearly three years ago. In summer 2007, my company, Wavelength Films, was lucky enough to be working with Stephen Fry on a film for BBC Four about Johannes Gutenberg - the man who invented printing. As we travelled through Germany in quest of ...
Getting Martin Amis' Money to the screen, with help from Nick Frost
As a former literature student, I had read Money and thrilled at its outrageous characters, gawped at its rich textual layers, and sniggered at the misadventures of its protagonist John Self - a drink-addled, swaggering misogynist, whose hopelessly flawed nature was at the centre of Martin Amis'...
Young, British And Angry: What fuels the English Defence League?
One of the main reasons I have ended up doing what I now do - making documentaries from the less accessible and hospitable parts of the world - is that I have always been slightly desperate to escape small town English life. I grew up in Bedford, but most of my family is from neighbouring Lu...
Sectioned: Filming inside a mental health unit
I'm really interested in making documentaries that go into worlds we seldom get to see, so I was thrilled to be asked to work with producer Lucy Cohen on an observational film made inside a psychiatric hospital. I'd also had an old mate who'd been in and out of psychiatric hospital many time...
Holby City: Connie and Joseph battle time and tide
At the beginning of the shoot for this two-part episode of Holby City, Time and Tide, I think the director was in some pain. When he was told that we were having two episodes about a flood but we weren't doing any flood sequences, he replied "Riiiiigggggghhhht." But I think it all works prett...
Boy George: What I thought of Worried About The Boy
Worried About The Boy is a new one off drama about Boy George's late teenage years. The story begins before he was famous, and tells the story of him leaving home in the suburbs and becoming a leading figure on the New Romantic club and fashion scene. It leads all the way up to him starting Cult...
Theo's Adventure Capitalists: Can you sell Marmite to India?
The concept of Theo's Adventure Capitalists is: Can we do business abroad? Our great British nation who used to be fantastic international traders has really contracted back to our shores in the last century or so. When we look at the state of the British economy, we're coming slowly out of r...
Autism, Disco & Me: Jimmy's in the mood for dancing
When I was asked to produce a documentary for BBC Three about how disco dancing has changed 10-year-old James Hobley's life, it seemed like an interesting opportunity to make a potentially quirky documentary about a cute kid who is a great dancer. It had to be a winner. That initial euphoria...
