Gerald Malcolm Durrell, was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals (1956). Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series and one television film. He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell.
Lee McGeorge Durrell is an American naturalist, author, zookeeper, and television presenter. She is best known for her work at the Jersey Zoological Park in the British Channel Island of Jersey with her late husband, Gerald Durrell, and for co-authoring books with him.
Clare Julia Hawes, 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.
Jacqueline Sonia Durrell is a British author. Born Jacquie Wolfenden, she married naturalist Gerald Durrell and worked alongside him for many years. She assisted him on several of his animal collecting expeditions, and with Jersey Zoo that he founded. The Durrells divorced in 1979.
Margaret Isabel Mabel "Margo" Durrell was the younger sister of novelist Lawrence Durrell and elder sister of naturalist, author, and TV presenter Gerald Durrell, who lampoons her character in his Corfu trilogy of novels: My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, and The Garden of the Gods.
Simon Nye is an English screenwriter, best known for television comedy. He wrote the hit sitcom Men Behaving Badly, and all of the four ITV Pantos. He co-wrote the 2006 film Flushed Away, created an adaptation of Richmal Crompton's Just William books in 2010, and wrote the drama series The Durrells.
Louisa Florence Durrell, was an Anglo-Irish woman born in India during the British Raj. She was the mother of Lawrence and Gerald Durrell. She was featured in Gerald Durrell's autobiographical Corfu trilogy, which tells about the Durrells' years in Corfu from 1935 to 1939 in a somewhat fictionalized way.
Theodore Philip Stephanides was a Greek-British doctor and polymath, best remembered as the friend and mentor of Gerald Durrell. He was also known as a naturalist, biologist, astronomer, poet, writer and translator.
The Whispering Land is an autobiographical account of the 8 months Gerald Durrell spent travelling in Argentina during the late 1950s, collecting animals for his then recently founded Jersey Zoo. The book is divided into two parts. In the first, Durrell travels south from Buenos Aires to the arid scrublands of Patagonia; in the second he is based at a small town in the north western province of Jujuy.
The Durrell family was an English family, two of whose members were best-selling writers. It has been the subject of several autobiographies, the TV series My Family and Other Animals (1987), the television film My Family and Other Animals (2005), the largely fictionalized TV series The Durrells (2016–2019), and the documentary What the Durrells Did Next.
Bitter Lemons is an autobiographical work by writer Lawrence Durrell, describing the three years (1953–1956) he spent on the island of Cyprus. The book was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize for 1957, the second year the prize was awarded.
Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (1969) by British naturalist Gerald Durrell is the second volume of his autobiographical Corfu trilogy, published from 1954 to 1978. The trilogy are memoirs about his childhood with his family between 1935 and 1939, when they lived on the Greek island of Corfu.
The Overloaded Ark, first published in 1953, is the debut book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It is the chronicle of a six-month collecting trip, from December 1947 to August 1948, to the West African colony of British Cameroon – now Cameroon and Nigeria – that Durrell made with aviculturist and ornithologist John Yealland.
The Garden of the Gods is a 1978 autobiographical book by British naturalist and author Gerald Durrell (1925–1995). It is the third book in his autobiographical Corfu trilogy, following My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives.
My Family and Other Animals is a 2005 television film written by Simon Nye and directed by Sheree Folkson. The film is based on the 1956 autobiographical book of the same title written by Gerald Durrell, in which he describes a series of anecdotes relating to his family's stay on Corfu from 1935–1939, when he was aged 10–14.
Christopher John Hall is an English television producer. He has produced dramas primarily for the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 networks, and worked for major British production companies, including Kudos, Carnival Films, Hat Trick Productions, World Productions and Tiger Aspect Productions.
The Durrells is a British comedy-drama television series loosely based on Gerald Durrell's three autobiographical books about his family's four years (1935–1939) on the Greek island of Corfu. It aired on ITV from 3 April 2016 to 12 May 2019. The series is written by Simon Nye, directed by Steve Barron and Roger Goldby, and produced by Christopher Hall. Lee Durrell, Gerald Durrell's widow and director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, acted as consultant. The series was partly filmed on location in Corfu, as well as at Ealing Studios and Twickenham Studios in London.
Daisy Waterstone is a British actress, best known for playing Margo Durrell in the ITV family drama The Durrells.
My Family and Other Animals is a 1987 British TV mini-series produced by the BBC and directed by Peter Barber-Fleming. It is based on Gerald Durrell's autobiographical book by the same name, My Family and Other Animals, which tells about the time his family spent on the Greek Island of Corfu in 1935–1939. The series consists of 10 episodes and was aired for the first time between 17 October and 19 December 1987.
The Corfu trilogy is the unofficial name for three autobiographical books by British naturalist Gerald Durrell, giving humorous, exaggerated and sometimes fictionalised stories of the years that he lived as a child with his siblings and widowed mother on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939. It describes the life of the Durrell family in a humorous manner, and explores the fauna of the island. A television series based on the trilogy, The Durrells, aired for four series from 3 April 2016 to 12 May 2019.
