Peter Bradshaw | |
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 Bradshaw in 2013 | |
| Born | Peter Nicholas Bradshaw 19 June 1962 |
| Education | Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1997–present |
| Employer(s) | The Guardian Evening Standard |
| Spouse | Caroline S. Hill |
| Website | theguardian |
Peter Nicholas Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at The Guardian since 1999, and is a contributing editor at Esquire .
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire [1] and studied English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was president of the Cambridge Footlights. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1984, followed by postgraduate research in the Early Modern period in which he studied with Lisa Jardine and Anne Barton. He received his PhD in 1989. [2]
In the 1990s, Bradshaw was employed by the Evening Standard as a columnist, and during the 1997 general election campaign, editor Max Hastings asked him to write a series of parodic diary entries purporting to be written by the Conservative MP and historian Alan Clark, which Clark thought deceptive and which were the subject of a court case resolved in January 1998, the first in newspaper history in which the subject of a satire sued its author. Bradshaw was not put into the witness box by his QC Peter Prescott, and the judge Gavin Lightman found in Clark's favour, granting an injunction, deciding that Bradshaw's articles were then being published in a form that "a substantial number of readers" would believe they were genuinely being written by Alan Clark. [3] Bradshaw found it "the most bizarre and surreal business of my professional life. I'm very flattered that Mr Clark should go to all this trouble and expense in suing me like this." [4]
Since 1999, Bradshaw has been chief film critic for The Guardian , writing a weekly review column every Friday for the paper's Film&Music section. He is a regular guest reviewer on the Film... programme broadcast on BBC One. He was on the Un Certain Regard jury for 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
He wrote and performed a BBC Radio 4 programme entitled For One Horrible Moment, recorded on 10 October 1998 and first broadcast on 20 January 1999, which chronicled a young man's coming of age in 1970s Cambridgeshire. His bittersweet short story Reunion, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 21 October 2016, was narrated by Tom Hollander and described as "sad and sly, and connected impermeably to the mid-Seventies and what it felt like to be young". [5] Another short story, entitled Neighbours Of Zero, first broadcast on Radio 4 on 17 November 2017, was narrated by Daniel Mays. [6] Bradshaw's story Senior Moment, first broadcast on Radio 4 on 22 May 2020, was narrated by Michael Maloney. [7] Bradshaw co-wrote and acted in David Baddiel's sitcom Baddiel's Syndrome , first aired on Sky One. [8]
In a 2022 Sight & Sound poll of cinema's greatest films, Bradshaw indicated that his ten favourites are: [9]
Bradshaw has been shortlisted four times for The Press Awards in the Critic of the Year category: 2001, [10] 2007, [11] 2012 [12] and 2013 [13] when he was "Highly Commended". [14]
At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Bradshaw was presented with the Annual Achievement Award for an International Film Critic by the Arab Cinema Center. [15]
Alan Bennett is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award.
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Barry Leslie Norman was a British film critic, television presenter and journalist. He presented the BBC's cinema review programme, Film..., from 1972 to 1998.
The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and has a long association with David Attenborough's authored documentaries, starting with 1979's Life on Earth.
Spider is a 2002 psychological thriller film produced and directed by David Cronenberg and based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Patrick McGrath, who also wrote the screenplay.
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Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter, author and podcaster. He is the co-presenter, with Ellen E. Jones, of the BBC Radio 4 programme Screenshot and co-presenter of the film-review podcast Kermode & Mayo's Take, alongside long-time collaborator Simon Mayo. Kermode is a regular contributor to The Observer, for which he was chief film critic between September 2013 and September 2023.
Bridget Jones's Diary is a 2001 romantic comedy film directed by Sharon Maguire from a screenplay by Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies and Richard Curtis. It is based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Fielding. The film stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones, a 32-year-old British single woman who writes a diary, which focuses on the things she wishes to happen in her life. However, her life changes when two men vie for her affection, portrayed by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones appear in supporting roles.
Thomas Anthony Hollander is a British actor. Hollander trained with National Youth Theatre and won the Ian Charleson Award in 1992 for his performance as Witwoud in The Way of the World. He made his Broadway debut in the David Hare play The Judas Kiss in 1998. His performance as Henry Carr in a revival of the Tom Stoppard play Travesties earned nominations for both the Olivier Award and Tony Award.
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Sophie Fiennes is an English filmmaker best known for her films Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2017) and Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010), as well as for her collaborations with philosopher Slavoj Žižek: The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006), and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2013).
Mathew Frazer Horne is an English actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and narrator. He is best known for appearing on several BBC sketch shows and sitcoms, most notably Gavin & Stacey, The Catherine Tate Show, Horne & Corden, and Bad Education.
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Joanna Hogg is a British film director and screenwriter. She made her directorial and screenwriting feature film debut in 2007 with Unrelated followed by Archipelago (2010), Exhibition (2013), The Souvenir (2019), The Souvenir Part II (2021), and The Eternal Daughter (2022). Two of her films topped the Sight & Sound annual poll for best film in their respective years, receiving nominations at the British Independent Film Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and at the Berlin International Film Festival.
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