Russell T Davies

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Davies at Comic-Con , July 2009

Stephen Russell Davies , OBE (born April 27, 1963 in Swansea , Wales ), better known by his stage name Russell T Davies , is a British television producer and screenwriter . His best-known productions are the series Queer as Folk , Doctor Who (2005–2010) and its offshoot series Torchwood .

Career

childhood and education

Davies' parents were both teachers. He has always watched a lot of television, read comic books, and showed an interest in the performing arts from a young age. He dates his earliest childhood memories to the broadcast of the Doctor Who episode " The Tenth Planet " (1966), which he sees as the reason for his love of science fiction . For a long time he wanted to be a draftsman until, at the age of 20, he realized that he liked professional writing more than painting. He continued to draw only as a hobby until he agreed to illustrate a book of poetry by James Goss in 2017.

In 1984 Davies graduated from Worcester College , Oxford University with a degree in English Literature and then took a year-long drama course in Cardiff . Davies then started working for the BBC as a production assistant before taking a BBC directing course in the late 1980s. To distinguish himself from the British radio presenter Russell Davies, he added a "T" in the middle to his name.

Beginnings and breakthrough with QAF

He produced Why Don't You? For the children's television division of BBC Manchester from 1988 to 1992 . . Davies' breakthrough as a screenwriter came in 1991 with the six-part science fiction series Dark Season , which was written for a children's audience and in which Kate Winslet played her first lead role. This was followed by the Century Falls series (1993), which was aimed at a slightly older target group. He received a Children's BAFTA Award in 1996 for an episode of the youth hospital drama Children's Ward that he wrote . Gradually he moved from children's and youth television to programs aimed at adults and wrote and produced episodes for the long-lived British soap opera Coronation Street , among other things .

The gay drama Queer as Folk (1999-2000) continues to be one of Davies most important works. The series on gay men in Manchester , written and produced by him, is one of the shows on British television that has generated the most complaints from viewers. Above all, the portrayal of the seduction of a 15-year-old, the explicit sex scenes, drug abuse and the stereotyping of gays were criticized. The series was praised for its complex characters, its freshness, energy and fearless openness. The series was equally well received by homosexual and heterosexual viewers. The success of the original series resulted in a North American remake of the same name , which was also able to attract a large audience and was also successful in Germany, but is considered by critics to be significantly below the quality level and expressiveness of the British original. Davies' other productions include the love comedy Bob and Rose (2001), in which a gay man falls in love with a woman. In 2003, Davies wrote and produced the series The Second Coming , in which the main character, played by Christopher Eccleston , claims to be the Son of God. In 2005, the BBC three-part television series Casanova followed , with Peter O'Toole and David Tennant playing the leading roles. Davies approached both Eccleston and Tennant again when he needed suitable leads for Doctor Who .

Doctor Who

Davies at the SDCC's Doctor Who Panel with leading actor David Tennant , director Euros Lyn and production manager Julie Gardner, 2009

Davies is best known today for the successful return of the cult British science fiction series Doctor Who , which originally ran from 1963 to 1989. Under Davies' direction as showrunner , executive producer and screenwriter from 2005 to 2009 , the series was a commercial success and critically acclaimed. As a lifelong fan of Doctor Who , he managed to reissue the show in a way that satisfied fans of the old episodes while attracting the interest of a new generation. Davies is credited with rescuing the UK family Saturday night program through Doctor Who . In order to cope with his new major project, Davies surrounded himself with many familiar faces; his predominantly Welsh crew consists largely of experienced film industry veterans with whom he had previously worked. Julie Gardner, also executive producer and at the time also head of department at BBC Wales, had already produced Casanova , a BBC three-part series for which Davies contributed the script. The Doctor Who -Produzenten Phil Collinson had befriended the Davies already in the 1990s, a role in Queer as Folk inscribed on his body. Queer as Folk also brought him together with film composer Murray Gold , whom he subsequently brought on board for his projects. Both Gold and Davies worked with lead actor Christopher Eccleston on The Second Coming and lead actor David Tennant on Casanova ; the two renowned character actors later took on the leading role of the doctor one after the other .

Davies sprinkled subtle hints like such an election poster into the series and its offshoots sometimes months before the start of the corresponding storyline .

Davies' specialty lies in the immediate sequence of comic and tragic moments, in particular in the subtle expansion of gigantic overarching storylines by gradually developing recurring stories and secondary characters over the years and linking them with one another. Even episodes that are completely independent in terms of content usually contain allusions to past events or announcements for future events. For example, the entire third season of Who and several Torchwood episodes broadcast at the same time contained apparently unimportant posters and advertisements for an upcoming election of the next prime minister , to which hardly any attention was paid until the newly elected Harold Saxon emerged as the incarnation of the master in the final three-part series (recurring antagonist since 1971) who had infiltrated British society for six months and manipulated it for his purposes. In the fourth season, the disappearance of the bee colonies since 1990 is mentioned countless times, either casually or jokingly . Together with other seemingly incidental remarks, this finding is ultimately a key key to the discovery of the Stolen Earth in the season’s final two-part. Another and particularly popular example was the figure of the Face of Boe / Captain Jack Harkness . The face of Boe was introduced as a supporting character in the second episode of the first season and appeared at least once in every subsequent season of Davies. Captain Jack Harkness was introduced as a temporary companion to the Ninth Doctor (Chris Eccleston) at the end of the first season, returned to David Tennant's 10th Doctorate in the third and fourth seasons, and since then has got his own series, Torchwood . So after both characters had been firmly established for more than three years, Davies surprisingly merged the already often interwoven storylines in the 2007 season finale and suggested that the two were the same character. With this development, he retrospectively gave meaningful context to a number of his seemingly loosely connected storylines. How long in advance Davies had devised and actively prepared this connection, he has not yet disclosed.

The series received the BAFTA Awards in 2005 as "Best Drama", the Pioneer Audience Award and Davies himself the Dennis Potter Award for "Outstanding Writing for Television". The extended episode " The Waters of Mars " written by him and Phil Ford , the penultimate adventure of the doctor written by Davies' , won a Hugo Award in the category "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form". In November 2008, Russell T Davies was named Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his drama services . In 2009 and 2010 he received the British Fantasy Award for Doctor Who for best television production.

In 2006 Davies developed The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood as offshoots of Doctor Who on behalf of the BBC . While The Sarah Jane Adventures is aimed at an even younger children's audience, Torchwood is designed as a “ Doctor Who for Adults”. The two offshoots remained so faithful and closely connected to the rules, events and characters of the Whoniverse that a large number of plot overlaps were possible without any problems. The Doctor Who two-part series “The Stolen Earth” / “The End of the Journey” at the end of the fourth season, for example, brought together the locations and main characters of all three series. The locations were alternately the Torchwood Hub, the UNIT location in New York, Sarah Jane's house in London and the TARDIS (all locations as usual in Cardiff).

In late 2009, Davies quit Doctor Who to pursue other projects. As the new showrunner, he selected the British screenwriter Steven Moffat , who had already written a number of individual Doctor Who episodes for Davies in the years before . Davies continued to produce the series The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood and moved to Los Angeles in 2010 to accompany the fourth season of Torchwood as a co-production of the BBC and the US broadcaster Starz. After the death of the leading actress Elisabeth Sladen (1946-2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures was discontinued in spring 2011 after five seasons. Davies and Phil Ford then developed the children's series Wizards vs Aliens for the same slot and with a large part of the Sarah Jane Adventures production team . Wizards vs Aliens started broadcasting on CBBC in fall 2012 .

In 2013 Davies had a guest appearance in the half-hour short film The Five (ish) Doctors Reboot by Peter Davison and his daughter Georgia Tennant . Ex-showrunner Davies, his successor Steven Moffat , Peter Davison ( 5th doctor ), Colin Baker ( 6th doctor ), Sylvester McCoy ( 7th doctor ), Paul McGann ( 8th doctor ), Georgia ( Jenny ) and David Tennant ( 10th Doctor ), John Barrowman ( Captain Jack Harkness ), Jenna Coleman ( Clara Oswald ), Matt Smith ( 11th Doctor ), Olivia Colman and other current and former cast and crew members of Doctor Who played parodistically distorted versions of themselves. The action period is the preparation of the 50th anniversary and the shooting of the 3D cinema special The Day of the Doctor . In the short film, Davies, Baker, McCoy and McGann try desperately, under Davison's leadership and with the support of Barrowman and the Tennants, to get even the smallest role in film production.

Davies returned to the Doctor Who theme in 2017 when he agreed to illustrate James Goss' book of poetry, Now We Are Six Hundred - A Collection of Time Lord Verse, in homage to the series. Writer and producer James Goss was responsible for Doctor Who’s official BBC CultTV website from 2000 to 2005 . After Davies revived the series, Goss moved to BBC Wales and was responsible for setting up and expanding the official series homepage, and was also involved in many other Doctor Who -related projects such as audio books and animated spin-offs . With the illustration of the book, Davies turned his drawing hobby into a profession for the first time.

Follow-up time

Due to a serious cancer illness in his husband, Davies interrupted his writing activities in 2012 and 2013 and kept contact only to a limited extent through his role as executive producer of Wizards vs Aliens .

After Smith's temporary recovery, he turned back to new projects and in 2014 created a new series concept for Channel 4 , which had already aired QAF . In 2014 and 2015, the three-part series was released, consisting of cucumber , banana and, most recently, tofu . The first two were fictional narratives, Tofu referred to an associated factual web series. With these projects, Davies dived again into the subject of homosexuality, which made him famous in 1999 with Queer as Folk . Once again, all the storylines in the Manchester gay scene play out. The three series are named after the names of different levels of male erection in a research study. In 2016 he wrote the screenplay for a new adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream . A Midsummer Night's Dream premiered on May 30, 2016, prime time at 8:30 p.m. on BBC One .

Several miniseries followed, including the acclaimed three-part television series A Very English Scandal (2018) and most recently the six-part Years and Years (2019).

Private life

Davies calls himself an atheist . From 1999 he lived with his future husband, the customs officer Andrew Smith; Davies had to be already in his student days gay outed . The couple initially lived in Manchester , where Queer as Folk was filmed, among other things . During his time as Doctor Who - showrunner lived alternately Davies in Manchester and Cardiff , where Doctor Who is filmed and the first three Torchwood emerged squadrons. Then they moved to Los Angeles , where he shot the fourth season of Torchwood . Shortly after it was broadcast, Smith fell so seriously ill that Davies returned to England with him and retired from the film business for a few years. After Smith was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and was predicted to have a cure of only 3%, they married at short notice on December 1, 2012 in a simple ceremony with only four guests. Davies had been caring for his husband at home since 2012, and they lived in Manchester again. Davies went back to work in late 2013. He described their living conditions as luck in unhappiness , because as a well-paid author he is better able than in many other professions to look after a family member at home. Andrew Smith died on September 29, 2018 as a result of his cancer. In the final sixth episode of Years and Years, Davies paid tribute to him and remembered the over 20 years together.

Filmography

Screenwriter

Producer (Artistic Director)

  • 1999–2000: Queer as Folk (co-producer)
  • 2001: Bob & Rose (co-producer)
  • 2019: Years and Years (co-producer)

Executive Producer (Management)

(see Executive Producer )

  • 2003: The Second Coming
  • 2004: Mine All Mine
  • 2005: Casanova
  • 2005–2010: Doctor Who ( Showrunner )
  • 2006–2011: The Sarah Jane Adventures
  • 2006-2011: Torchwood
  • 2012–2013: Wizards vs Aliens
  • 2014: Cucumber
  • 2015: Banana
  • 2015: tofu
  • 2018: A Very English Scandal

bibliography

  • Russell T Davies, Benjamin Cook: The Writer's Tale . BBC Books, London 2008, ISBN 1-84607-571-8 .
  • Russell T Davies, Benjamin Cook: The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter . BBC Books, London 2010, ISBN 1-84607-861-X .
  • Mark Aldridge, Andy Murray: T is for Television: The Small Screen Adventures of Russell T Davies . Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, London 2008, ISBN 1-905287-84-4 .

Web links

Commons : Russell T Davies  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Lawson Talks To Russell T Davies , BBC Four , January 16, 2008 (English)
  2. ^ A b Mark Aldridge, Andy Murray: T is for Television: The Small Screen Adventures of Russell T Davies . Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, November 30, 2008, ISBN 1-905287-84-4 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Richard Johnson: Master of the universe. In: The Daily Telegraph . March 11, 2007, accessed February 5, 2011 .
  4. ↑ a b Frances Taylor: Russell T Davies is returning to the world of Doctor Who - but not in the way you'd expect. In: Radio Times. March 18, 2017, accessed October 5, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Caleb Woodbridge: Russell T Davies Interview. In: Quench. May 20, 2007, accessed February 5, 2011 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Mark Aldridge: Davies, Russell T. In: British Film Institute . Retrieved February 5, 2011 .
  7. ^ Profiles: Russell T. Davies. In: BBC News . June 13, 2008, accessed February 5, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Behind TV: Russell T Davies. In: BAFTA. July 23, 2008, archived from the original on May 13, 2010 ; accessed on March 21, 2017 (English).
  9. ↑ Cameron K. McEwan: Captain Jack joined Doctor Who 10 years ago - John Barrowman's best bits In: Metro, May 21, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  10. ^ Past Winners and Nominees - 2005. In: BAFTA . Retrieved February 6, 2011 .
  11. ↑ 2010 Hugo Awards. In: The Hugo Awards. Retrieved February 19, 2011 .
  12. ↑ Doctor Who's Davies collects OBE. In: BBC News. November 28, 2008, accessed February 6, 2011 .
  13. ^ Russell T Davies creates new series for CBBC, starring Doctor Who's Sarah Jane Smith. In: BBC Press Office. September 14, 2006, accessed February 6, 2011 .
  14. ^ Doctor Who spin-off made in Wales. In: BBC News. October 17, 2005, accessed February 6, 2011 .
  15. ^ Doctor Who guru Davies steps down. In: BBC News. May 20, 2008, accessed February 6, 2011 .
  16. ^ Torchwood returns with international flavor. In: BBC News. June 8, 2010, accessed February 6, 2011 .
  17. ^ Russell T Davies to create new children's drama for CBBC. In: BBC. January 23, 2012, accessed October 15, 2012 .
  18. ^ Russell T Davies Explores 21st Century Gay Life in New Drama for C4. In: Channel 4. November 19, 2013, accessed December 29, 2013 .
  19. ↑ a b Heledd Pritchard: 'It was a hilariously sad wedding but we had the biggest laugh' Russell T Davies opens up on marriage and caring for husband Andrew Smith In: WalesOnline (Media Wales) of May 28, 2016. February 2018.
  20. ↑ Stuart Jeffries: I can be very bolshie .
  21. ^ Doctor Who's Russell T Davies saves family TV .
  22. ^ Decca Aitkenhead: Russell T Davies: 'It sounds like a sex version of Midsummer Night's Dream. And it's not ' . In: The Guardian , Guardian News and Media, May 27, 2016. 
  23. ^ Paul Fogarty: Years and Years: Who is Andrew Smith? The reasoning behind touching tribute. In: HITC of June 19, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Davies, Russell T
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Davies, Stephen Russell (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British television producer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Swansea , Wales , UK