James Graham writes his way to success
We take a look at the busy diary of playwright turned screenwriter James Graham.
If you're a subscriber to Production Intelligence, you may have noticed a writer credit cropping up with regularity recently.
James Graham is a name to watch - at the age of just thirty, he has successfully made the transition from playwriting to screenwriting with several TV credits under his belt and a feature film currently in development with the mighty Weinstein Company.
Graham is already an acclaimed playwright - his This House transferred from The Cottesloe to The Olivier - and he has written Finding Neverland which transfers from Boston to New York in the spring,
Among his early TV credits was Caught in a Trap, broadcast in 2008, after which he went on to pen episodes of The Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Prisoners' Wives. He is currently working on original series and adaptations with Tiger Aspect, Left Bank Pictures, Kudos and the BBC.
Graham is also the brain behind Coalition, a feature-length drama which has just gone into production and which stars Bertie Carvel as Nick Clegg and Mark Gatiss as Peter Mandelson.
In July last year, filming began on Origin Pictures' X + Y, a feature from director Morgan Matthews currently creating a lot of industry buzz. Graham wrote the screenplay: a rites-of-passage story which centres on a group of gifted teenagers competing at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Asa Butterfield stars alongside Sally Hawkins, Rafe Spall and Eddie Marsan. The film was shot in Sheffield, Cambridge and Taiwan.
Staying with feature film, Graham is now working on Gypsy Boy, a feature film currently in development at BBC Films. The project is an adaptation of Mikey Walsh's memoir of growing up in a Romany community and is working towards a 2015 shoot.
And that's not all, the screenwriter has also adapted William Kuhn's novel Mrs Queen Takes the Train, which imagines a time when Queen Elizabeth, driven by boredom, wanders out of Buckingham Palace in search of freedom and fun. The project is being developed by the hefty Weinstein Company.
It seems that Graham's star is very much in the ascendant - we say long may it last.
More on the titles mentioned above can be found on Production Intelligence, our online database of advance and archive productions. To order, click here.
The latest in our Studios Spotlight is OMA V, due to be fully open at the end of this month. We speak to Location Collective’s MD Becky Butler about the new facility, the company’s studio portfolio and the plans for the future. Filming has begun on Series 14 of Silverprint Pictures’ crime drama Vera, as ITV confirmed it will be the final run. Climate Spring’s The Hot House development lab is returning, with screenwriters encouraged to craft “stories of the climate transition.” With sustainability at the top of the agenda for production, managing the eco credentials of your film or TV project is becoming more important every day. Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson will star in Down Cemetery Road, based on the book by Slow Horses author Mick Herron, for Apple TV+. The latest spotlight in our Studios series shines on Bristol’s Bottle Yard Studios, the largest film and TV studio in the west of England.
Also on The Knowledge
Studios Spotlight – OMA V
Final series of Vera begins filming
Climate Spring’s development lab returns
Sustainability system launches with new Sky comedy
Emma Thompson, Ruth Wilson to star in Mick Herron drama for Apple TV+
Studios Spotlight – Behind the scenes at The Bottle Yard Studios
