Andrew J. Piddington (born October 18, 1949 in Romford, Essex) is an English film and television director, screenwriter, and producer.
He directed films such as Shuttlecock (1991), The Fall (1999), The Dinosaur Hunters (2002) and The Killing of John Lennon (2006). [1] The low-budget The Killing of John Lennon starred Jonas Ball as Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman, and was screened at the Edinburgh and Rotterdam Film Festivals. [2] In 1990 he directed the documentary Hidden Heritage: The Roots of Black American Painting featuring David Driskell, [3] funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain and produced by Maureen McCue. [4] In 1996 he directed the series SAS: The Soldiers' Story , featuring soldiers in different wars and locations in each of the seven episodes, including the Falklands War, the Gulf War, and in Northern Ireland.
Piddington was first married to Christine Spencer. He is currently married to Pearl Morrison, who has worked as a script adviser on his films, [5] and the couple have two children.
John Winston Ono Lennon was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who gained worldwide fame as the founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's work included music, writing, drawings, and film. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.
Richard Lester Liebman is an American retired film director based in the United Kingdom, famous for his comedic and campy tone style of shooting movies and for his work in both USA and UK cinema.
Audie Leon Murphy was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Sir John Boorman is a British filmmaker. He is best known for directing feature films such as Point Blank (1967), Hell in the Pacific (1968), Deliverance (1972), Zardoz (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Excalibur (1981), The Emerald Forest (1985), Hope and Glory (1987), The General (1998), The Tailor of Panama (2001) and Queen and Country (2014).
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. It was also issued on a double A-side single, paired with "Yellow Submarine". The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney with significant lyrical contributions from John Lennon, and credited to Lennon–McCartney.
Tumbledown is a 1988 BBC Television drama film set during the Falklands War. Directed by Richard Eyre, it stars Colin Firth, Paul Rhys, and David Calder.
The Buccaneer is a 1958 pirate-war film made by Paramount Pictures starring Yul Brynner as Jean Lafitte, Charles Boyer and Claire Bloom. Charlton Heston played a supporting role as Andrew Jackson, the second time that Heston played Jackson, having portrayed him earlier in the 1953 film The President's Lady. The film was shot in Technicolor and VistaVision, the story takes place during the War of 1812, telling a heavily fictionalized version of how the privateer Lafitte helped in the Battle of New Orleans and how he had to choose between fighting for America or for the side most likely to win, the United Kingdom.
"I Need You" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album Help! It was written by George Harrison, the group's lead guitarist, and was the second composition of his to be released by the Beatles. The track appears in their film Help!, in a scene filmed on Salisbury Plain where the group were under military protection from a murderous cult.
During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, British security forces were accused by some of operating a "shoot-to-kill" policy, under which suspected paramilitary members were killed without an attempt being made to arrest them. This alleged policy was claimed to be most frequently directed against suspected members of Irish republican paramilitary organisations, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). According to an 1985 inquiry by a team of international lawyers titled Shoot to Kill?, undercover security force units were "trained to shoot to kill even where killing is not legally justifiable and where alternative tactics could and should be used." The British government, including the Northern Ireland Office, consistently denied that there was ever a "shoot-to-kill" policy, stating that "like everyone else, the security forces must obey the law and are answerable to the courts for their actions."
Kenwood is a house on the St George's Hill estate, Weybridge, Surrey, England. Originally called the Brown House, it was designed by architect T. A. Allen, and built in 1913 by Love & Sons, a local building firm. The estate was constructed around the Weybridge Golf Club, which was designed in 1912 by Harry Colt.
David C. Driskell was an American artist, scholar and curator; recognized for his work in establishing African-American Art as a distinct field of study. In his lifetime, Driskell was cited as one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of African-American Art. Driskell held the title of Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, at the University of Maryland, College Park.
"More popular than Jesus" is part of a remark made by John Lennon of the Beatles in a March 1966 interview in which he argued that the public were more infatuated with the band than with Jesus and that Christian faith was declining to the extent that it might be outlasted by rock music. His opinions drew no controversy when originally published in the London newspaper The Evening Standard, but drew angry reactions from Christian communities when republished in the United States that July.
Let It Be is a 1970 British documentary film starring the Beatles and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. The film documents the group's rehearsing and recording songs in January 1969 for what was to become their twelfth and final studio album Let It Be. The film includes an unannounced rooftop concert by the group, the last public performance of the four together.
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. He writes for The Guardian, and was the paper's chief drama critic from 1971 to 2019. Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008).
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. With a line-up comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they are commonly regarded as the most influential band of all time. Between 1964 and 1970, they appeared in five major motion pictures, beginning with A Hard Day's Night (1964) and ending with Let It Be (1970). From late 1965 to 1969, the group also appeared in several promotional films for their singles, which have been credited with anticipating music videos and the rise of MTV in the 1980s.
The Killing of John Lennon is a 2006 biographical film about Mark David Chapman's plot to kill musician John Lennon. The film was written and directed by Andrew Piddington and stars Jonas Ball, Robert C. Kirk and Thomas A. McMahon.
Stephen Hubert Avenel Haggard was a British actor, writer and poet.
Andrew Annandale Sinclair FRSL FRSA was a British novelist, historian, biographer, critic, filmmaker, and a publisher of classic and modern film scripts. He has been described as a "writer of extraordinary fluency and copiousness, whether in fiction or in American social history".
Shuttlecock is a 1993 French-British thriller film directed by Andrew Piddington and starring Alan Bates, Lambert Wilson and Kenneth Haigh. It is based on the 1981 novel Shuttlecock by Graham Swift.
"Evidently Chickentown" is a poem by the English performance poet John Cooper Clarke. The poem uses repeated profanity to convey a sense of futility and exasperation. Featured on Clarke's 1980 album Snap, Crackle & Bop, the realism of its lyrics is married with haunting, edgy arrangements.