Paul Bryers (born 1 August 1955 in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
) is a British
film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
,
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
and fiction
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
.
Biography
Paul Bryers studied Modern history, politics and economy at the
University of Southampton
, mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour
, type = Public research university
, established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...
. Later he joined the
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
’s training scheme for journalists. He worked there for two years, and then became a reporter and presenter for the British commercial television station
Southern ITV. Later he became producer and director, covering conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and South America.
Film, television and radio
After his career as a reporter, Paul Bryers became especially known for his documentaries and docudramas for the television channels
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
,
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
,
Channel 5 and
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
.
He wrote the
radio play
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...
, ''The Floating Republic'', about the
Nore Mutiny
The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. They were the first in an increasing series of outbreaks of maritime radicalism in the Atlantic World. Despite their temporal proximity, the mutinies d ...
for
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
which was broadcast on Saturday 4th December 1982 and starred
Brian Cox as the mutineer
Richard Parker.
Bryers got quickly noticed by docudramas as ''A Vote For Hitler'' (1988) about the
Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fa ...
in 1938 and the subsequent
1938 Oxford by-election, and ''A Strike Out of Time'' (1990), a docudrama about the
miners’ strike in 1985.
In 2001 he made the four-part TV series ''Queen Victoria's Empire'' with
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films ''Citizen X'' (1995) an ...
, which won the ''Outstanding achievement award'' at the
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, it is ...
in 2002.
Besides documentaries and docudramas Bryer adapted some classics of the world literature for television. In 1992 he made the TV film ''Incident in Judea'', an adaptation of the biblical chapters from the novel
The Master and Margarita
''The Master and Margarita'' (russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin's regime. A censored version, with several chapters cut by ...
by
Mikhail Bulgakov with Mark Rylance in the role of Yeshua (Jesus) and
John Woodvine
John Woodvine (born 21 July 1929) is an English actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.
Early life
Woodvine was born in Tyne Dock, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, Englan ...
in the role of
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of J ...
, and in 1992 he made a screen version of the theater play
The Golden Years by
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' ( ...
about the
conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...
by
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
, with
Robert Powell
Robert Powell (; born 1 June 1944) is an English actor who is known for the title roles in ''Mahler'' (1974) and '' Jesus of Nazareth'' (1977), and for his portrayal of secret agent Richard Hannay in '' The Thirty Nine Steps'' (1978) and its ...
as the conquistador Cortés and
Ronald Pickup
Ronald Alfred Pickup (7 June 1940 – 24 February 2021) was an English actor. He was active in television, film, and theatre, beginning with a 1964 appearance in ''Doctor Who''. Theatre critic Michael Billington described him as "a terrific sta ...
as
Montezuma.
The author Paul Bryers
Paul Bryers is also the author of several novels, published between 1976 and 2003. He got the ''British Arts Council Award for Best First Novel''.
In 2008 he started writing ''The Mysteries of the Septagram'', a series of novels for children and teenagers. The first in the series, ''Kobal'', was published in 2008 and was nominated for the ''Waterstone's Book of the Year Award''. Thereafter followed ''Avatar'' (2009) and ''Abyss'' (2010). His next novel for children and young adults is to be published by Hachette Children's Books in August 2013. Called 'Spooked:The Haunting of Kit Connelly' it tells the story of a girl whose meeting with her own ghost changes her life.
The author Seth Hunter
In 2008 Paul Bryers started another series of books under the pseudonym Seth Hunter.
Waterstone Publishers, Author Seth Hunter
The stories play in the time of the War of the First Coalition
The War of the First Coalition (french: Guerre de la Première Coalition) was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that suc ...
, an armed conflict between the revolutionary France
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
and an alliance of European powers, later known as the ''First Coalition''. The hero of these novels is called Nathan Peake.
Filmography
*1988 – A Vote for Hitler (TV film, Channel 4)
*1989 – The Survivor's Guide (Documentary TV series, Channel 4)
*1990 – A Strike Out of Time (TV film, Channel 4)
*1991 – Incident in Judaea
''Incident in Judaea'' is a British film made by Paul Bryers, based on the novel ''The Master and Margarita'' by the Soviet author Mikhail Bulgakov. The film only tells the biblical parts of the novel though. It was broadcast by the British Chann ...
(TV film, Channel 4)
*1992 – The Golden Years (TV film, Channel 4)
*1993 - The Essential History of Germany (Documentary, BBC Two)
*2001 – Tales from the Tower (Docudrama, The Learning Channel)
*2001 – Queen Victoria's Empire (Documentary TV series, PBS)
*2002 – Harem (Docudrama series, Channel 4)
*2003 – Seven Wonders of the Industrial World – The Line (TV series, BBC Two)
*2004 – The Great Nazi Cash Swindle (Documentary, Channel 4)
*2005 – Murder at Canterbury (Docudrama, BBC Two)
*2005 – Flood at Winchester (Docudrama, BBC Two)
*2005 – Nelson’s Trafalgar (Docudrama, Channel 4)
Bibliography
Novels
*1978 – Hollow Target
*1978 – Cat Trapper
*1982 – Hire Me a Base Fellow
*1987 – Coming First
*1991 – The Adultery Department
*1995 – In a Pig’s Ear
*1998 – The Prayer of the Bone
*2003 – The Used Women’s Book Club
The Mysteries of the Septagram
*2008 – Kobal
*2009 – Avatar
*2010 – Abyss
Seth Hunter
*2008 – The Time of Terror
*2009 – The Tide of War
*2010 – The Price of Glory
*2011 – The Winds of Folly
*2012 - The Flag of Freedom
*2013 - The Spoils of Conquest
References
External links
*
Official website
*
Paul Bryers in the Internet Movie Data Base
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryers, Paul
British cinematographers
English cinematographers
English children's writers
1954 births
Living people
English male writers