Antonia Bird

Director

May 5, 1951 (62 years)

† October 24, 2013

London, England, UK

Biography

Antonia Jane Bird, FRSA (27 May 1951 – 24 October 2013) was an English producer and director of television drama and feature films, a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Directors Guild of America, Directors UK,BECTU, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

Filmography

4.2

EastEnders

The everyday lives of working-class residents of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough.

6.5

Peak Practice

Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.

7.7

Spooks

Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.

7.1

Screen Two

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

7.9

Inspector Morse

Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses.

6.8

The Bill

The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.

6.0

ScreenPlay

Screenplay was a drama anthology television series, broadcast on BBC between 1986 and 1993. Numerous episodes were produced including one named "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" starring Robbie Coltrane as English writer Samuel Johnson who in the autumn of 1773, visits the Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland. That episode was directed by John Byrne and co-starred John Sessions and Celia Imrie.

7.2

The Village

The Village is a BBC television drama created and written by Peter Moffat. Consisting of two six-episode series—the project intended as a 42-hour televised epic—the first series covers 1914 to 1920; the second continued the story into the 1920s. However, it was not commissioned for a third series. An epic drama charting the turbulent times experienced by one English village throughout the 20th century; births, deaths, political events and rebellions are among the events that occur during the time. Bert Middleton lives across the entire 100-year period, and his story from boyhood to old age forms the crux of the story, seen via flashbacks as Bert is interviewed in the present day by a documentarian working on a project about the second eldest man in the United Kingdom and his village.

6.2

Priest

The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation.

10.0

South of the Border

Female private detectives Pearl Parker and Finn Gallagher operate within the bustling multicultural communities of South London.

6.8

Ravenous

After arriving at his new, remote Army outpost, Capt. John Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide – a vicious U.S. Army colonel gone rogue. Fearing the worst, the regiment heads out into the wilderness to verify the gruesome claims.

N/A

Thin Air

A drama miniseries about Rachel Hamilton, a radio station reporter who investigates corruption in her community.

5.2

Mad Love

Matt falls for Casey, the new girl in school. She's fun-loving and eccentric, but there's a darkness to her whimsy that Matt can't begin to comprehend. When Casey attempts to commit suicide, her parents place her in a mental institution. Matt springs her out, and together the young lovers head on a road trip. They believe their love can "cure" Casey's problems. Matt starts to wonder, though, if are they inspired or misguided.

7.0

Thin Air

Set in a commercial radio station in an enterprise zone called ‘Riverside’, Thin Air involved property development on a massive scale, the disruption and forced exodus of a local community, the stripping away of local authority powers, left-wing activism, designer drugs, media hacks.

5.0

Saracen

Saracen is a 1989 British television drama series. Made for ITV by Central Television, it starred Christian Burgess and Patrick James Clarke in the title roles. 13 episodes were made which were shown throughout the autumn of 1989.

5.9

A Passionate Woman

1950s period drama based on the true story of a housewife and mother whose life is turned upside down by a handsome Polish man at her local dance hall.

6.3

Face

Ray is an aging ex-socialist who has become a bankrobber after seeing the demise of socialism in 1980s Britain. Teaming up with a gang of other has-beenish crims, he commits one bank job too many. The gang dissolves in a murderous flurry of recriminations.

8.0

A Masculine Ending

While English professor Loretta Lawson is attending a conference in Paris, she stays the night in the flat of a friend's acquaintance. She discovers a sleeping man in one of the bedrooms, and the next morning finds the man gone, but the bed soaked with blood. Returning to Cambridge, she begins to suspect her friend's acquaintance, and others on the staff of the college, are involved with the missing (murdered?) man, and decides to investigate for herself.

5.3

Safe

Antonia Bird's first feature length film; "Safe" from 1993, focused on the plight of the homeless in London.

5.3

Care

A man struggles to piece together his life after suffering years of abuse in a children's home - a personal battle made doubly difficult by crusading reporters determined to expose the scandal.