Nigel George Farrell, born on 22 January 1953 in London, died 24 September 2011, [1] was a television documentary film-maker who was a pioneer in what has been termed 'docu-soaps'. He initially followed his father into medicine, but soon entered the world of television via local journalism. He worked on programmes such as South Today and Breakfast Time, and on BBC Radio 4 appeared on Ned Sherrin’s Saturday evening show Loose Ends.
He will primarily be remembered for a 50-programme Radio 4 series called The Village (which went on to become a television series ); three series of Country House set at Woburn Abbey, An Island Parish , which evolved from A Country Parish , launched in 2001 on BBC Two and a series on Channel 4 called A Place In France. He also directed and presented a 1991 TV documentary film about passengers on one of the British freight ships plying between the UK and the Caribbean, Banana Boat.
Farrell wrote several books based on his experiences and as tie-ins for his television series'.
Educated at Christ's Hospital School in Sussex, he was the son of a doctor. Farrell had three children, Thomas, Alexandra and Georgina, from his 1977 marriage to Mo, which ended in divorce in 2002. [2] [3]
Having previously lived in the Hampshire village of Crondall and with a holiday home in Devon, [4] he moved to Les Fabres near Vals-les-Bains in France's Ardèche region in 2002 (as seen on A Place in France) and later started an 18 month relationship with his mortgage broker; Celine Cavaillez. [5] [6] This later broke down [7] and he started a relationship with Sally-Ann Fitt, who, despite some televised skirmishes during Nigel's Place in France, [8] was to remain his partner until his death.
Farrell was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early 2010. [2] By November of the same year he was in remission but he died in September 2011 after the cancer returned. [2]
Geoffrey Howard Perkins was a British comedy producer, writer and performer. He was BBC head of comedy between 1995 and 2001, and produced the first two radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is one of the people credited with creating the panel game Mornington Crescent for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. In December 2008 he posthumously received an Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award.
The Comic Strip are a group of British comedians who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents..., which was labelled as a pioneering example of the alternative comedy scene. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Alexei Sayle and others.
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist originally created by writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the British Experimental Rocket Group. He continually finds himself confronting sinister alien forces that threaten to destroy humanity.
Steven William Moffat is a Scottish television writer, television producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work as the second showrunner and head writer of the 2005 revival of the BBC sci-fi television series Doctor Who (2010-17), and for co-creating and co-writing the BBC crime drama television series Sherlock (2010-17). In the 2015 Birthday Honours, Moffat was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to drama.
Quatermass is a 1979 British television science fiction serial. Produced by Euston Films for Thames Television, it was broadcast on the ITV network in October and November 1979. Like its three predecessors, Quatermass was written by Nigel Kneale. It is the fourth and, to date, final television serial to feature the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, this time played by John Mills.
Tiger Aspect Productions is a British television and film production company, particularly noted for its situation comedies. Founded by Peter Bennett-Jones, its productions have included popular hits such as Mr. Bean and The Vicar of Dibley. The present-day company was founded in 1993 from the merger of Bennett-Jones' Tiger Television and Paul Sommers' Aspect Film & Television.
Natural World is a strand of British wildlife documentary programmes broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Two HD and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history series. It is the longest-running documentary in its genre on British television, with nearly 500 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World programmes are typically one-off films that take an in-depth look at particular natural history events, stories or subjects from around the globe.
Whiplash is a British/Australian television series in the Australian Western genre, produced by the Seven Network, ATV, and ITC Entertainment, and starring Peter Graves. Filmed in 1959-60, the series was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in September 1960, and in Australia in February 1961.
Roger Arthur Graef OBE was an American-born British documentary filmmaker and theatre director. Born in New York City, he moved to Britain in 1962, where he began a career producing documentary films investigating previously closed institutions, including Government ministries and court buildings.
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Nature documentaries usually concentrate on video taken in the subject's natural habitat, but often including footage of trained and captive animals, too. Sometimes they are about wildlife or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series which is distributed across the world.
The first season of the international fantasy series Highlander: The Series, part of the Highlander franchise, consisted of 22 episodes produced between 1992 and 1993, and began airing on October 3, 1992 in broadcast syndication. Highlander: The Series follows the adventures of Duncan MacLeod, a 400-year-old Immortal who can only die if he is beheaded; conflict inevitably finds him because he is part of the Gathering, an ongoing battle in which all Immortals have to fight and behead each other until only one is left. The season was released on DVD as a nine-disc boxed set on November 12, 2002 by Anchor Bay Entertainment. It is also available at the online video on demand service Hulu, a joint venture between NBC and Fox Broadcasting Company.
Paul Marquess is a television producer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. His credits include Brookside, The Bill, Family Affairs, Hollyoaks, Crime Stories, Suspects and Hope Street. He also originated the idea for the series Footballers' Wives. He currently holds the post of managing director of Newman Street, a label of Fremantlemedia.
Neil Nightingale is a British freelance wildlife filmmaker, executive producer and creative consultant with over 35 years experience at the BBC. From 2009 to 2018 he was the creative director of BBC Earth, BBC Worldwide's global brand for all BBC nature and science content.
An Island Parish is a British television documentary made by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Two. Series 1 and 2 covered the lives of residents of the Church of England parish of the Isles of Scilly. These series were supported by the Diocese of Truro. They followed A Seaside Parish, which covered the work of the Reverend Christine Musser in the parish of Boscastle in Cornwall, and also A Country Parish before that. Series 3 and 4 looked particularly at the work of the Methodist Church on the Isles of Scilly, as seen through the eyes of the local minister, the Revd David Easton.
Frozen Planet is a 2011 British nature documentary series, co-produced by the BBC ZDF and The Open University. It was filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. The production team, which includes executive producer Alastair Fothergill and series producer Vanessa Berlowitz, were previously responsible for the award-winning series The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006), and Frozen Planet is billed as a sequel of sorts. David Attenborough returns as narrator. It is distributed under licence by the BBC in other countries, Discovery Channel for North America, ZDF for Germany, Antena 3 for Spain and Skai TV for Greece.
The Village (1993) is a television series about the life and times of the villagers of Bentley, Hampshire, from 1993 to 2001.
Nicola Shindler is a British television producer and executive, and founder of the independent television drama production company Quay Street Productions, having founded and run Red Production Company from 1998 to 2020. She has won eleven BAFTA TV Awards.
Ashley Sidaway is a writer, producer and editor working in film and television. His films include Rainbow, Battle of the Brave (Nouvelle-France) and Joy Division as well as the long-running BBC TV series Best Of British.
Harry Bradbeer is a British director, producer, and writer. He is known for his work on the television series Fleabag and Killing Eve, and the films Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2.
Weapons That Made Britain is a 2004 TV documentary series broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK.