Julian Mitchell

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Charles Julian Humphrey Mitchell,

FRSL (born 1 May 1935) is an English playwright, screenwriter and occasional novelist. He is best known as the writer of the play and film Another Country, and as a screenwriter for TV, producing many original plays and series episodes, including ten episodes of Inspector Morse.[1]

Mitchell was born in

Harkness Fellow in the USA (1959–61). He earned an M.A. in 1962 at St. Antony's College, Oxford
. Since 1962 he has been a freelance writer.

In the late 1960s, Mitchell co-wrote the teleplay Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) with Ray Davies of The Kinks. It was never produced, though it gave rise to the band's concept album. He recently recalled the aborted project: "Arthur had a most unhappy history. It was originally meant to be a ... sort of rock opera, and we got as far as casting (excellent director and actors) and finding locations and were about to go when the producer went to a production meeting without a proper budget, tried to flannel his way through it, was immediately sussed and the production pulled. I have never been able to forgive the man."[citation needed]

Mitchell has written nine produced plays, including Another Country, which won the SWET (now Olivier) Award for best play of the year (1981), and After Aida (1985), a play-with-music about composer Giuseppe Verdi.

Mitchell has screenplay credits for five feature films. The earliest was

Arabesque (1966), which was directed by Stanley Donen. Another Country (1984) is based on Mitchell's own play, and directed by Marek Kanievska. Vincent & Theo (1990) is a biographical film about the famed painter Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo, and was directed by Robert Altman. August (1996) was directed and starred Anthony Hopkins, and was adapted from Anton Chekhov's classic play Uncle Vanya. Wilde (1997) is based on the life of Oscar Wilde, and was directed by Brian Gilbert
.

In 2007 he wrote the BBC4 drama

1957 report
.

Novels

References

  1. ^ {List of Inspector Morse Episodes}
  2. ^ Winchester College Register 1992

External links

  • Julian Mitchell at
    IMDb
  • Armstrong, Esther (3 June 2009). "Interview with Julian Mitchell: The Past is Another Country". Retrieved 18 June 2009.