Lee Hall

Lee Hall (born September 20, 1966 in Newcastle upon Tyne , England ) is a British playwright and screenwriter . He gained international fame especially from the turn of the millennium through his script for the film Billy Elliot - I Will Dance . This was followed by other stage plays and more screenplays, including the novel adaptations Companions and Pride and Prejudice (with Keira Knightley ) and the biopics Rocketman (with Taron Egerton as Sir Elton John ) and Victoria & Abdul (with Dame Judi Dench as Queen Victoria and Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim ).

Life

Lee Hall attended comprehensive school and then studied English at Cambridge University . After graduation, he worked as a fundraiser for the youth theater in Newcastle and for the Gate Theater in Notting Hill .

Hall's breakthrough as an author took place in 1997 when his radio play Spoonface Steinberg of the BBC has been sent, the story of a cancer-stricken , autistic girl who he adapted in 1998 for television and 2000 for the stage.

In 2010 he wrote the screenplay for Toast , the following year he was involved in Companions as a screenwriter. Victoria & Abdul was released in 2017, and he was involved in the script. Rocketman , a film biography about Elton John , followed in 2019. Together with John, he had adapted his script for Billy Elliot as a stage musical years earlier and received a Tony nomination in the music category (John for the music, Hall for the lyrics) .

Works

Dramas

• 1995: I Luv You Jimmy Spud
• 1997: The Love Letters of Ragie Patel
• 1997: The Sorrows of Sandra Saint
• 1997: Spoonface Steinberg (originally as a radio play ; 1998 television, 2000 stage implementation)
• 1999: Cooking with Elvis
• 2000: NE1
• 2001: The Chain Play
• 2005: Child of the Snow
• 2005: Two's Company
• 2007: The Pitmen Painters
• 2014: Shakespeare in Love
• 2015: Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour
• 2017: Network

Scripts

• 2000: Billy Elliot - I Will Dance ( Billy Elliot )
• 2001: Gabriel and Me
• 2005: Pride and Prejudice ( Pride and Prejudice )
• 2006: The Wind in the Willows
• 2010: toast
• 2011: Companions ( War Horse )
• 2017: Victoria & Abdul
• 2019: Rocketman
• 2019: Cats

Musicals

• 2005: Billy Elliot the Musical

Operas

• 2011: Beached

Translations

• Mr Puntila and his servant Matti by Bertolt Brecht (translation from German : Mr Puntila and His Man Matti , 1998)
• The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni (translation from Italian : A Servant to Two Masters , 1999)
• Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht (Translation from German: Mother Courage and Her Children , 2000)
• Op Hoop van Zegen by Herman Heijermans (translation from Dutch : The Good Hope , 2001)

Awards

Laurence Olivier Award

• 2006: Best New Musical - Billy Elliot the Musical - won
• 2017: Best New Comedy - Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour - won
• 2018: Best New Play - Network - nominated

Tony Award

• 2009: Best Book of a Musical - Billy Elliot the Musical - won
• 2009: Best Original Score - Billy Elliot the Musical (with Elton John) - nominated

Further theater awards

• 2008: Evening Standard Award: Best Play - The Pitmen Painters - won
• 2009: Drama Desk Award , Outstanding Book of a Musical - Billy Elliot the Musical - won
• 2009: Drama League Award, Distinguished Production of a Musical: Billy Elliot the Musical (with Elton John ) - won
• 2009: Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding New Score: Billy Elliot the Musical (with Elton John) - won

BAFTA

• 2001 : Best Original Screenplay - Billy Elliot - nominated

Oscar

• 2001: Best Original Screenplay - Billy Elliot - nominated

Golden Raspberry

• 2020: Worst script - Cats - nominated

Further film awards

• 1999: Pearson Playwrights' Scheme Award - won
• 2000: British Independent Film Award , Best Screenplay - Billy Elliot - won
• 2011: Satellite Award , Best Adapted Screenplay - Companions ( War Horse , with Richard Curtis ) - nominated
• 2018: Satellite Award, Best Adapted Screenplay - Victoria & Abdul - nominated

literature

• Billy Elliot. Screenplay (= Reclams Universal Library . No. 19818, Reclam Foreign Language Texts). Edited by Susanne Schmid. Reclam, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-15-019818-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Lee Hall in the catalog of the German National Library
• Lee Hall at theInternet Movie Database(English)