Andy Harries

Andrew Harries''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005''. Volume 15, page 1493, reg # 792. (born 7 April 1954) is chief executive and co-founder of Left Bank Pictures, a UK based production company formed in 2007. In a career spanning four decades he has produced television dramas including ''The Royle Family,'' '' Cold Feet,'' the revivals of ''Prime Suspect'' and '' Cracker'', as well as the BAFTA-winning television play '' The Deal''.

In 2006 he received an Academy Award nomination as producer of ''The Queen,'' which saw Helen Mirren win Best Actress for her role, and in 2007, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded him the Special Award in Honour of Alan Clarke. 2011 saw the Royal Television Society confer a Fellowship on Harries for outstanding contributions to the broadcasting industry. He has been described by Broadcast Magazine as "one of the UK's most outstanding drama producers".

Since 2007, Left Bank has produced the television series ''Wallander'', '' Strike Back,'' ''Outlander (TV series)'', ''The Replacement'' amongst many other acclaimed dramas.

In 2016, they released ''The Crown'', the first American-British television series produced exclusively for Netflix. The Golden Globe, SAG and Emmy winning series, written by Peter Morgan, has been very well received by critics and audiences.

Their fourth feature film, Dark River was released on 23 February 2018. It was written and directed by Clio Barnard, stars Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, and Sean Bean. It screened in the Platform section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

Left Bank Pictures has won numerous industry awards, including Best Independent Production Company at the Edinburgh TV Awards (2017) and Broadcast Awards (2018).

Family

Harries is married to filmmaker and writer Rebecca Frayn, daughter of the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn (now married to biographer Claire Tomalin). Their twin sons, Jack and Finn, ran the JacksGap YouTube channel from 2011.

Early life and education

Andy Harries was born in Inverness, Scotland, on 7 April 1954 and grew up in Peterborough, England, receiving primary education at West Town Primary School until 1961, and secondary education at the public Oakham School.BFI Film & TV Database: Harries, ANDY
". British Film Institute. Retrieved on 2 March 2008.Armstrong, Stephen (27 October 2008)
"Making mischief is a good thing"
''The Guardian'' (Guardian News & Media): p. 5 (''MediaGuardian'' supplement). He grew up aspiring to be a war correspondent in Vietnam, or an investigative journalist; his idols were Harold Evans, Jon Swain and John Pilger.Clarke, Steve (May 2007).
Independent spirit
. ''Television'' (Royal Television Society) 44 (5). He left college at the age of 17 with poor A Level results and became a trainee reporter on the ''Peterborough Evening Telegraph'' newspaper. His time on the newspaper raised his awareness of politics, and he sought to further his understanding of it by studying at university. He applied to various northern universities to break away from his southern middle-class lifestyle, and was accepted at Hull University.Harries, Andy. Interview with John Mair (25 April 2007).
Coventry Conversations
''. Coventry University Podcasting Service. Retrieved on 2 March 2008.

Harries stayed at Hull until he was 21, though continued to work at the ''Evening Telegraph'' during holidays. At university he developed an interest in music journalism and found an outlet for this by writing reviews for ''Melody Maker''.

Early career (1976–1981)

After leaving Hull, Harries moved to London to work for the Southern News Service news agency, writing diary pieces for the ''Daily Mail'' and ''News of the World'' from 1975 to 1976. On the advice of a friend, he applied for a position as a researcher for Granada Television in Manchester. He did not understand the appeal of television production, and as a result he was turned away at two interviews before being hired in 1976.Elliot, Katy (3 November 2000).
Harries goes large
. ''Broadcast'' (Emap Media).

Shortly after being hired he was taken aside by the news producer and asked to read the on-air bulletin for the nightly broadcast. He read the news for three months until one night when he condensed a six-minute bulletin into three minutes. He attributed this to stage fright, which caused him to speak too fast. The rest of the production crew were not ready to move on to the next news items, leaving Harries standing in silence for several minutes. Harries recalled in a 2007 interview that Steve Morrison, the producer of the bulletin, called him into his office and berated him, telling him he did not deserve to be on television and that he would no longer be reading the news. Morrison's remarks angered Harries to such a point that he assaulted the man. Aware that he was going to lose his job, he contacted a Granada colleague who got him a new job at Granada's London centre, which he took up at the age of 23.

Pursuing his interest in investigative journalism, Harries worked as a researcher on the current affairs programme ''World in Action'', where he met Paul Greengrass. While Greengrass achieved success in exposing alleged corruption involving Manchester United F.C. chairman Louis Edwards, Harries investigated irregularities in the British Singles Chart. Greengrass's investigation was a success, though Harries admits his own programme "didn't make a blind bit of difference".

Freelance and Channel X (1981–1992)

In 1981, Harries left Granada and moved into freelance producing and directing. He directed the documentary series ''Africa'' in 1984 before beginning a collaboration with Paul Yule, with whom he made four films in Peru between 1985 and 1989—'' Martin Chambi and the Heirs of the Incas'', ''Our God the Condor'', ''Iquitos'', and ''Mario Vargas Llosa: The Novelist Who Would Be President''—and working on editions of ''The South Bank Show'' and ''Arena''. While directing a corporate video for BT he met Jonathan Ross, who was his assistant for the day. Ross invited Harries to direct a pilot for a chat show he and Alan Marke had developed that was based on ''Late Night with David Letterman''. The pilot was a success and Ross found a television audience with ''The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross'', which first aired in 1988.Belcher, David (2 September 1999). "Funny how things turn out". ''The Herald'' (Newsquest): p. 14.

Harries formed a production company called Sleeping Partners with Greengrass in the latter part of the decade, which produced Ross's ''The Incredibly Strange Film Show'' and comedian Lenny Henry's ''Lenny Live and Unleashed'' film.Dawtrey, Adam (24 February 2007).
'Queen' gives Harries his independence
. ''Variety'' (Reed Business Information). The latter was directed by Harries and was edited together from a number of performances by Henry at the Hackney Empire in 1989. ''The Guardian''s film critic called the direction "unobtrusive".

The 1990s began with more direction and production for Ross and Marke's Channel X production company; in 1991 he made the documentary ''Viva Elvis!'' and executive produced Middlemarch Films' ''The Ghosts of Oxford Street'', a musical about Oxford Street's history. The script for ''Ghosts'' was written by Harries's wife, Rebecca Frayn. The same year, he developed a script with Peter Morgan called ''Bhundu Beat'', a film described by ''Variety'' as "a bizarre remake of '' A Hard Day's Night'' featuring the briefly fashionable Zimbabwean band the Bhundu Boys and Brit comic Lenny Henry". With a development budget of £2,000, Harries sent Morgan on a research trip to Zimbabwe, taking a circuitous route that lasted for three days. ''Bhundu Beat'' was never made.

Second Granada career (1992–2007)

Controller of Comedy

At the 1991 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Harries personally bought the television rights to ''An Evening with Gary Lineker'', a comedy play written by Arthur Smith and Chris England based around a group of England fans at the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Smith bet Harries £100 that he would not be able to get the adaptation on television before the next World Cup. Harries tried selling Smith and England's screenplay to the BBC
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