Kevin Sampson is a British novelist, best known for his novels Awaydays (1998), Powder (1999) and Stars Are Stars (2006). He lives in Birkenhead, Merseyside. His crime thriller, The Killing Pool, was published by Cape on 21 March 2013.
Sampson began writing gig reviews for NME in the 80s, though was famously sacked by editor Neil Spencer for reviewing a Sex Gang Children concert at a Liverpool club that had been burned down on the night the band had been due to appear. [1] He went on to contribute regularly to The Face , Arena , i-D , Sounds , Jamming , The Observer and Time Out before joining Channel 4 as an assistant editor for Youth Programmes.
He left C4 to set up Kinesis Films, a company that specialised in documentaries about subcultures (notably Sole of the Nation, a film about Dr. Martens boots, and Ibiza - A Short Film About Chilling). Sampson returned to Merseyside in 1990 to help long-time friend Peter Hooton set up Produce Records with partners Ian Croft, Wayne Chand, Barney Moores and Paul McKenna. Produce enjoyed a string of Top 40 hits in the early 1990s, including The Farm's "Groovy Train" and "All Together Now".
When The Farm broke up in 1994, Sampson dug out the manuscript to a novella he had sent to Penguin in 1982. Awaydays was based on what he saw during his youth, travelling to, and at, football grounds up and down the country. Inspired by Irvine Welsh's debut Trainspotting , Sampson re-worked the novel, which was acquired by publisher Dan Franklin at Jonathan Cape. Awaydays was an immediate critical and commercial success on its release in 1998. Sampson's second novel, Powder, reflects some of his experiences of the music business with The Farm and Produce Records, and subsequent adventures in Ibiza, and working for Richard Branson's V2 Music.
Awaydays was adapted to film in 2009. [2] [3] He writes about his involvement in the Ibiza film A Short Film About Chilling in the Summer 2010 Umbrella Magazine's Issue 1 [4] and a film version of Powder was released August 2011. Surveillance, a film from one of Sampson's original screenplays, was in competition at the Berlinale's "Panorama" section in 2008, and his forthcoming crime thriller Gangsterland is under option with Red Union Films.[ citation needed ]
In January 2018, Sampson was hired to pen new mini-series Anne, produced by ITV Studios owned World Productions' for ITV, which centres on Anne Williams' crusade for justice after the death of her son Kevin in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989. [5] [6]
On the 21 April 2022, ITV announced that filming had started on the 3 episode drama series The Hunt for Raoul Moat. [7] [8] It's again being produced by World Productions for ITV1. [7] [8] It's written by Sampson, stars Lee Ingleby as Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson, and Matt Stokoe as Raoul Moat. [7] [8]
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Birkenhead is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 88,818.
James Stanley McGovern is an English screenwriter and producer. He is best known for creating the drama series Cracker (1993–1995), for which he received two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. He also received recognition for creating drama series such as Hillsborough, The Lakes, The Street, and Accused, among others. On 8 December 2021 Jimmy was conferred the Freedom of Liverpool, in recognition of his life's work.
The Farm are a British band from Liverpool. Their first album, Spartacus, reached the top position on the UK Albums Chart when it was released in March 1991; Spartacus 30 was released in 2021 to commemorate the anniversary. Spartacus includes two songs which had been top 10 singles the year before. In 2012, they toured with their Spartacus Live shows and formed part of the Justice Tonight Band, supporting the Stone Roses at Heaton Park, Phoenix Park, Lyon and Milan. The Justice Collective had the 2012 Christmas number one with their recording of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".
New Brighton is a seaside resort and suburb of Wallasey, at the northeastern tip of the Wirral peninsula. It lies in the traditional county of Cheshire and is currently administered as part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England, It has sandy beaches which line the Irish Sea and mouth of the Mersey, and the UK's longest promenade.
The Wirral Peninsula, known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about 15 miles (24 km) long and 7 miles (11 km) wide, and is bounded by the Dee Estuary to the west, the Mersey Estuary to the east, and Liverpool Bay to the north.
Oliver Lee is an English actor. He played the role of Josh Jones in the Channel 4 television drama series Hollyoaks: In the City, during 2006; and Aiden Scotcher in the BBC One school-based drama series Waterloo Road, during 2011. He was born in Greater Manchester, England. He is married to Sophie Rosa Lee, they have 3 children.
Scot Williams, is an English actor, writer, and producer for stage, film and television.
On 22 August 2007, Rhys Milford Jones, an eleven-year-old English boy, was murdered in Liverpool while walking home from football practice. Sean Mercer, aged 16 at the time of the shooting, went on trial on 2 October 2008, and was found guilty of murder on 16 December. Mercer was sentenced to life imprisonment serving a minimum of 22 years.
Stephen Walters is an English actor. A regular in British television and film, he has played a wide range and variety of character roles in both drama and comedy. Walters is most commonly associated with unpredictable, complex figures. He was nominated for a Royal Television Society Best Actor award in 2013 for his role in the Sky Arts drama Ragged and in 2023 for a Supporting Actor (Male) award for his role in the ITV drama Anne.
Awaydays is a 2009 British crime drama film directed by Pat Holden and starring Nicky Bell, Liam Boyle and Stephen Graham. It is based on the novel of the same name by Kevin Sampson that was published in 1998. The film follows Paul Carty, a 19-year-old in the aftermath of his mother's death who becomes part of The Pack - a legendary group of football hooligans who dress casual and wear Peter Storm cagoules, carry Stanley knives and follow Tranmere Rovers F.C.
The 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt was a major police operation conducted across Tyne and Wear and Northumberland with the objective of apprehending fugitive Raoul Moat. After killing one person and wounding two others in a two-day shooting spree in July 2010, the 37-year-old ex-prisoner went on the run for nearly a week. The manhunt concluded when Moat died by suicide having shot himself near the town of Rothbury, Northumberland, following a six-hour standoff with armed police officers under the command of the Northumbria Police.
Suzanne Collins is an English actress and businesswoman. She is known for portraying the role of Nikki Shadwick on the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside.
Nicky Allt is an English playwright, Author and Filmmaker.
Umbrella Magazine is a quarterly men's online magazine focusing on fashion, architecture, travel, sport, design and culture for men. The editor is the journalist and musician Anthony Teasdale who has written for Arena, Esquire and FHM and who wrote the tracks; More Sunday Than Saturday and I Think You Love Me. The art director is Matthew Reynolds. Other Freelancer contributors include Kevin Sampson (writer), author of Awaydays and Powder, John Makin, writer of the book, Redman, A Season On the Drink, Brett Foraker, an advertising film director who works for Ridley Scott's advertising company RSA and Architecture correspondent Justin Clack, director of property consultants Frost Meadowcroft.
Hillsborough is a television film written by Jimmy McGovern and starring Annabelle Apsion, Christopher Eccleston and Ricky Tomlinson. Set between 1989 and 1991, the film is a dramatization of the Hillsborough disaster, which saw 97 football supporters lose their lives at Hillsborough in Sheffield. The film won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Single Drama
Matthew Joseph Stokoe is a British actor. He is best known for his roles as Alex in the Channel 4 series Misfits, crime boss Luke Aikens in the thriller Bodyguard, teacher Gerard Eyre in The Village, Captain Marcheaux in series 3 of The Musketeers for the BBC, and as James Read in the Sky 1 series Jamestown. In 2020, he played Gawain in the Netflix original series Cursed.
Sonya Cassidy is a British actress. Her credits include The Tudors (2009), The Paradise (2012), Vera (2012–2014), The Great Fire (2014), Survivor (2015), Olympus (2015), Humans (2016), The Woman in White (2018), Lodge 49 (2019), The Last Kingdom (2022), The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022), and The Hunt For Raoul Moat (2023).
Anne, subtitled One Mother's Story, is a British historical drama television miniseries developed by World Productions. Starring Maxine Peake as the titular campaigner Anne Williams, the four-part drama revolves around the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 and its aftermath. The series premiered on ITV on 2 January 2022 and aired for four consecutive nights.
Protection is an upcoming British crime drama television series made for ITVX.
