Heidi Thomas | |
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 Thomas in 2022 | |
| Born | 13 August 1962 Liverpool, England |
| Alma mater | University of Liverpool |
| Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, playwright |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Family |
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Heidi Thomas OBE (born 13 August 1962) is an English screenwriter and playwright.
After reading English at Liverpool University, Thomas gained national attention when her play, Shamrocks And Crocodiles, won the John Whiting Award in 1985. Her play Indigo was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in their 1987/88 season. Other theatrical work includes Some Singing Blood at London's Royal Court Theatre, and an adaptation of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea , presented in London and at the National Theatre of Norway in Oslo. Her play The House of Special Purpose was staged at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2010.
Her screen adaptations include feature film I Capture the Castle (2003) [1] and the screenplay for a BBC television adaptation of Madame Bovary (2000). In 2007 she was the creator, writer and executive producer of BBC period drama Lilies . She wrote the screenplays for two major BBC adaptations of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford , [2] and a film adaptation of the Noel Streatfeild novel Ballet Shoes . [3]
In 2010 she was writer and executive producer of a major revival of the classic British television drama series Upstairs, Downstairs for the BBC. In 2011 she wrote and co-produced an adaptation of the Call the Midwife trilogy of books by Jennifer Worth. [4] The series achieved record viewing figures for the channel. [5] A second and third series aired in subsequent years. In February 2014 BBC announced that a 2014 Christmas Special and a fourth series had been commissioned. [6] [7] A fifth series was commissioned for 2016, shortly after series four was done filming. [8] On 23 November 2016, the BBC announced a three-year deal with Neal Street Productions, commissioning a seventh, eighth and ninth series, all with Christmas specials. [9] Having ordered series ten and eleven, and despite COVID-19 pandemic, the BBC announced in April 2020 that it had commissioned series 12 and 13, taking episodes into 2024.
In March 2008, she received the Best Writer award at the UK Royal Television Society awards for her work on Cranford. In April 2008 she received the Best Writer award at the UK Broadcasting Press Guild Awards for her work on Cranford, Ballet Shoes, and Lilies. She was nominated for two BAFTA TV Awards for Cranford as well as a Primetime Emmy. In November 2008 she received the Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best TV Series for Cranford. In 2011 she received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Upstairs Downstairs. In December 2012, the annual UK 'Women in Film and Television' awards presented her with the Technicolor Writing Award in recognition of her contribution to the industry.
A production of the musical Gigi was newly adapted by Thomas and ran at the Kennedy Center in January 2015, and then on Broadway, closing in June 2015. [10]
In January 2019, Thomas was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Writing Award by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain for her body of professional work. [11] In December of that year, Thomas was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, selecting music by Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and Gabriel Fauré [12]
In 2021, Thomas wrote the screenplay for Allelujah , a film adaptation of Alan Bennett's play Allelujah! , first staged by Nicholas Hytner at the Bridge Theatre in London. The film stars Jennifer Saunders, Bally Gill, Russell Tovey, David Bradley, Derek Jacobi, and Judi Dench and was directed by Richard Eyre. [13] The film will be released in 2022.
Thomas is an honorary associate of the London Film School, [14] and has honorary doctorates from the University of Liverpool and Edge Hill University. [15] [16]
Thomas was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to drama. [17]
Thomas is married to actor Stephen McGann, who plays Dr Turner in Call the Midwife , with whom she has a son, Dominic.
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English actress, comedian, and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with her best friend and comedy partner, Dawn French. With French, she co-wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, French and Saunders, for which they jointly received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2009. Saunders later received acclaim in the 1990s for writing and playing her character Edina Monsoon in her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
Kim Victoria Cattrall is a British and Canadian actress. She is known for her portrayal of Samantha Jones on HBO's Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning the 2002 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised the role in the feature films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as in a cameo on the spin-off series And Just Like That... (2023).
Jennifer Ann Agutter is an English actress. She began her career as a child actress in 1964, appearing in East of Sudan, Star!, and two adaptations of The Railway Children; the BBC's 1968 television serial and the 1970 film version. In 1971 she also starred in the critically acclaimed film Walkabout and the TV film The Snow Goose, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama.
Georgina McKee is an English actress. She won the 1997 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for Our Friends in the North (1996), and earned subsequent nominations for The Lost Prince (2003) and The Street (2007). She also starred on television in The Forsyte Saga (2002) and as Caterina Sforza in The Borgias (2011). Her film appearances include Notting Hill (1999), Phantom Thread (2017), and My Policeman (2022).
Stephen David Daldry CBE is an English director and producer of film, theatre, and television. He has won three Tony Awards for his work on Broadway and an Olivier Award for his work in the West End. He has received three Academy Awards nominations for Best Director, for the films Billy Elliot (2000), The Hours (2002), and The Reader (2008).
Pauline Collins is a British actress who first came to prominence portraying Sarah Moffat in Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1973) and its spin-off Thomas & Sarah (1979). In 1992, she published her autobiography Letter to Louise.
Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) for ITV. It ran for 68 episodes divided into five series on ITV from 1971 to 1975.
Clare JuliaHawes, known professionally as Keeley Hawes, is an English actress. After beginning her career in a number of literary adaptations, including Our Mutual Friend (1998) and Tipping the Velvet (2002), Hawes rose to fame for her portrayal of Zoe Reynolds in the BBC series Spooks (2002–2004), followed by her co-lead performance as DI Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes (2008–2010). She is also known for her roles in Jed Mercurio's Line of Duty as DI Lindsay Denton (2014–2016) and in BBC One drama Bodyguard (2018) in which she played Home Secretary Julia Montague. Hawes is a three-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, having been nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for her roles as Lindsay Denton and Julia Montague, and a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Dorothy Wick in the drama Mrs Wilson.
Dame Eileen June Atkins, is an English actress and occasional screenwriter. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford. She is also a three-time Olivier Award winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 and Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001.
Julia Kathleen Nancy McKenzie is an English actress, singer, presenter, and theatre director. She has premièred leading roles written by both Alan Ayckbourn and Stephen Sondheim. On television, she is known for her BAFTA Award nominated role as Hester Fields in the sitcom Fresh Fields (1984–1986) and its sequel French Fields (1989–1991), and as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple (2009–2013).
Adrian Philip Scarborough is an English actor.
Helen Edmundson is a British playwright, screenwriter and producer. She has won awards and critical acclaim both for her original writing and for her adaptations of various literary classics for the stage and screen.
Cranford is a British television series directed by Simon Curtis and Steve Hudson. The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was adapted from three novellas by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1858: Cranford, My Lady Ludlow and Mr Harrison's Confessions. "The Last Generation in England" was also used as a source.
Deborah Findlay is an English actress. She has worked primarily on stage, but has also appeared in several TV series. She is known for playing the Defoe family matriarch Ruth in three series of the BBC TV legal drama The Split (2018-2022).
Jessica Raine is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Jenny Lee in the television series Call the Midwife (2012–2014) and Verity Lambert in the television film An Adventure in Space and Time (2013). Raine portrayed Catherine Parr in Becoming Elizabeth, a historical drama featuring Elizabeth I as a teenager.
Upstairs Downstairs is a British drama series, broadcast on BBC One from 2010 to 2012, and co-produced by BBC Wales and Masterpiece. Created and written by Heidi Thomas, it is a continuation of the London Weekend Television series of the same name, which ran from 1971 to 1975 on ITV.
Sarah Gordy, MBE is a British actress who has Down syndrome. She is best known for her roles as Katie Thorne in The A Word and Ralph & Katie, Orlando Quine in Strike: The Silkworm, Lady Pamela Holland in the BBC TV series of Upstairs Downstairs, and Lucy Craddle in The Long Call. She has also acted in episodes of Call the Midwife, Holby City and Doctors. As well as these TV shows, she has acted in short films, radio dramas, commercials, and many theatre productions. In 2018 she became the first woman with Down syndrome to be made an MBE and the first person with Down syndrome to receive an honorary degree from a UK university.
Helen Elizabeth George is an English actress, best known for playing Trixie Franklin on the BBC drama series Call the Midwife. In 2015, she participated in the thirteenth series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing; she was paired with Aljaž Skorjanec, and finished in sixth place. She was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards for her contribution to the cast recording of Cinderella.
Philippa Lowthorpe is an English film and television director. She was awarded the Deluxe Director Award at the WFTV Film and Television Awards for the miniseries Three Girls. She recently directed episodes of the second season of The Crown and the 2020 film Misbehaviour.
Jemma Churchill is an English television, theatre, film and radio actress, best known for her roles as Nanny Lyons in Upstairs Downstairs, and Ms Fellows in Waterloo Road.
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