Nigel Stafford-Clark

Last updated

Nigel Stafford-Clark
Born (1948-06-12) 12 June 1948 (age 76)
Bromley, Kent, England
Occupation(s)Film and television producer
Years active1982–2018

Nigel Stafford-Clark (born 12 June 1948) is a British film and television producer and the managing director of Deep Indigo. [1] He is best known as the producer of Warriors , The Way We Live Now , Bleak House , and The Passion , which were broadcast by the BBC. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

The brother of theatre director Max Stafford-Clark, Nigel was educated at Felsted and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Career

He worked in advertising and in sponsored documentaries before becoming a commercials producer at Moving Picture Company (MPC).

In the buildup to the launch of Channel 4 in November 1982, he formed MPC's programme department, executive producing a number of documentary series for the new channel, including one of its earliest hits Tom Keating on Painters. He also produced several television films for the Film on Four strand, including Last Day of Summer, written by Ian McEwan from his own short story, and The House, the debut drama from writer-director and People Show alumnus Mike Figgis. He moved on to feature films in the mid-80s, including The Assam Garden , in which Deborah Kerr gave a highly acclaimed performance in what would be her last feature, and Stormy Monday , starring Melanie Griffith, Tommy Lee Jones, Sting and Sean Bean, in which Mike Figgis made an immediate impact as writer and director of his first. [3]

In 1988, Stafford-Clark moved to Zenith Productions, the independent drama production company whose feature film credits included Prick Up Your Ears , Wish You Were Here , Sid and Nancy and The Hit , and whose television productions included Inspector Morse and Hamish Macbeth . During his time there he produced a number of television and feature films, amongst them the highly controversial and award-winning Shoot to Kill (1990), the drama debut of documentary film-maker Peter Kosminsky, which told the story of the Stalker Inquiry in Northern Ireland. [4] [5]

In 1998 Stafford-Clark left Zenith to form his own production company, Deep Indigo, winning the BAFTA for Best Drama Serial three times between 1999 and 2005 with productions for the BBC. [6] Warriors (1999), written by Leigh Jackson, reunited him with director Peter Kosminsky and dealt with the brutal realities facing young British soldiers on peacekeeping duties in Bosnia. [7] [8] The Way We Live Now (2001), the first of three projects with writer Andrew Davies, was directed by David Yates and starred David Suchet as Anthony Trollope's rogue Augustus Melmotte. [9] [10] This was followed by a second Trollope adaptation He Knew He Was Right (2003) directed by Tom Vaughan, [11] and then by Bleak House (2005). [12] This eight-hour adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens was shown in the UK twice weekly in half-hour episodes (after an initial hour), inspired by the episodic publication of the original novel. It was directed by Justin Chadwick and Susanna White, with Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance, Anna Maxwell Martin and Carey Mulligan leading a cast of over 65. [13] [14] It is ranked in the top 15 of Metacritic's Best TV Shows of All Time, with an aggregate critics' score of 93/100 which remains the highest for any British drama. [15]

In March 2008 Stafford-Clark's production The Passion was broadcast on BBC One. [16] It told the story of Jesus from his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to his Crucifixion and the events which followed. Written by Frank Deasy and directed by Michael Offer, it was stripped across Holy Week in four peak-time episodes.

Stafford-Clark next produced Titanic , a four-hour serial for ITV in the UK written by Julian Fellowes, that took a fresh look at the sinking of the Titanic for the one hundredth anniversary in April 2012. Filming was completed in mid-July 2011 at the Stern Studios in Budapest. The UK/Hungary/Canada co-production was sold to 160 countries, including the ABC Network in the USA, TF1 in France and ZDF in Germany, and won the 2013 TV BAFTA for Best Visual Effects. [17] His most recent production is Press , a six part drama series for BBC One and PBS Masterpiece Theatre, written by Mike Bartlett ( Dr Foster , King Charles III ) and directed by Tom Vaughan.

Accolades

In addition to the BAFTAs, his productions have received three Best Drama awards from the Royal Television Society and four from the Broadcasting Press Guild, as well as several Emmys and the prestigious Peabody Award in the US.

He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Saunders</span> English comedian (b. 1958)

Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English actress, comedian, singer, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Fellowes</span> English actor, writer, producer and politician

Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, film director, screenwriter, and Conservative peer. He has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and two Emmy Awards as well as nominations for four BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, two Olivier Awards, and a Tony Award.

Geraldine Margaret Agnew-Somerville is an Irish-British actress. She is known for her roles in the film Gosford Park (2001) and the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011). Her other roles have included Daphne (2007), My Week with Marilyn (2011) and Grace of Monaco (2014). In 1995, Somerville was nominated for a BAFTA Award for playing Jane Penhaligon in the television series Cracker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Jones</span> Welsh actress, producer, and writer (born 1966)

Ruth Alexandra Elisabeth Jones is a Welsh actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She co-wrote and co-starred in the award-winning BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey. She later co-wrote and starred in the Sky One comedy-drama Stella (2012–2017), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance and won the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter.

Antonia Jane Bird, FRSA was an English producer and director of television drama and feature films.

Shaun Duggan is a BAFTA nominated English writer based in the UK. He has repeatedly collaborated with Jimmy McGovern. He has written several plays and has worked extensively for television including Brookside and EastEnders (BBC1).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Kosminsky</span> British writer, director and producer (born 1956)

Peter Kosminsky is a British writer, director and producer. He has directed Hollywood movies such as White Oleander and television films like Warriors, The Government Inspector, The Promise, Wolf Hall and The State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nial Fulton</span> Australian television producer

Nial William Fulton is an Australian film and television director, producer and writer. Focused on social justice issues, his works include investigative documentaries Revelation, Hitting Home, Borderland, The Queen & Zak Grieve and Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra.

David Belton is a director, writer, and film producer. His experiences as a BBC reporter covering the 1994 Rwandan genocide led him to write the original story and produce the film Shooting Dogs, directed by Michael Caton-Jones, which dramatizes the events at the Ecole Technique Officielle. It was retitled Beyond the Gates for its 2007 U.S. release. He has directed documentaries and drama-documentaries and documentaries for PBS and dramas for the BBC. His book, When the Hills Ask for Your Blood was published in January 2014 by Doubleday.

The Brothers McLeod are illustrator Greg McLeod and writer Myles McLeod. They are British filmmakers represented by Sheil Land Associates and specialising in illustration, writing and 2D animation. They have been nominated for two BAFTA Film Awards for Best British Short Animation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnny Harris (actor)</span> English actor, screenwriter, producer and director

Johnny Harris is an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominic Mafham</span> English actor (born 1968)

Dominic Mafham is an English stage, film and television actor. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Giles Foster has been an English television director since 1975, specialising in television dramas. He has also directed in Australia and in Germany (2012-2014). He wrote some television dramas in the 1970s.

Will Brenton is a writer/producer-director who has worked in many areas of television and theatre, primarily through his companies Tell-Tale productions and Wish Films, both of which he founded with Iain Lauchlan. Together they gained six BAFTA nominations, as well as many other awards for their work together. They won a 2000 BAFTA, Best Pre-School Live Action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stefan Schwartz</span> English director and actor

Stefan Schwartz is an English and Canadian film and television director, writer and actor, most known for the feature film Shooting Fish and his work on the BBC's Spooks and Luther, AMC's The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead as well as The Americans and The Boys. He is also the creator of Talking Scripts with business partner Idris Elba - An IOS app that reads Film and TV scripts using different voices for the characters.

Gerry Scott Foulds was an English production designer.

Elizabeth Karlsen is an American–British film producer. Her career has spanned over three and a half decades, and In 2019, she was awarded the BAFTA award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Her work has garnered a total of 52 BAFTA nominations and wins, and 20 Academy Award® nominations and wins. In 2002, she co-founded Number 9 Films with production partner and husband, Stephen Woolley.

Derek Wax is a British television executive producer. His work includes The Rig, The Sixth Commandment, Sex Traffic, Occupation, The Hour,Troy: Fall of a City,Capital,Humans, Lip Service, Tsunami: The Aftermath and From There to Here. He was a producer at Granada TV from 2001 to 2005 and an Executive Producer at Kudos from 2005 to 2017.

Jon S. Baird is a Scottish film director. Born and raised in Aberdeenshire, he began his career at BBC Television.

Mahalia Belo is an English film and television director.

References

  1. ↑ "Awards: they feel nice but do they matter?". Televisual. March 2007. Retrieved 7 August 2024– via EBSCOHost.
  2. ↑ "The Passion". BBC. 25 February 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
  3. ↑ Maslin, Janet. "Stormy Monday". New York Times. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
  4. ↑ "Shoot to Kill". IMDb Awards. IMDb. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  5. ↑ Buckley, Rob. "Lost Gems: Shoot to Kill". The Medium Is Not Enough. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  6. ↑ Stafford-Clark, Nigel. "BAFTA Awards". BAFTA. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  7. ↑ "Warriors". IMDb Awards. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  8. ↑ Fordy, Tom. "Warriors and the brutal reality of Bosnia". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  9. ↑ "The Way We Live Now". IMDb Awards. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  10. ↑ "The Way We Live Now". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  11. ↑ Lawson, Mark. "Lawson on TV - He Knew He Was Right". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  12. ↑ "Bleak House". IMDb Awards. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  13. ↑ "In praise of... Bleak House". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  14. ↑ Helm, Jake. "The 20 best literary TV adaptations". The Times. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  15. ↑ "Best TV Shows of All Time". Metacritic. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  16. ↑ "About The Passion". BBC. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
  17. ↑ "Titanic". IMDb Awards. Retrieved 14 August 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.