Andrew Davies (writer) - Writer For Television

Writer For Television

Davies' first television play, Who's Going to Take Me On?, was broadcast in 1965 as part of BBC1's The Wednesday Play strand. His early plays were written as a sideline to his work in education, many of them appearing in anthology series such as Thirty Minute Theatre, Play for Today and Centre Stage.

Davies is the creator of the children's Marmalade Atkins television series and A Very Peculiar Practice, and is also well known for his adaptations of classic works of literature, including the 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the 1998 adaptation of Vanity Fair, and the 2008 BBC adaption of Sense and Sensibility. He is the writer of the screenplays both for the 1994 BBC production Middlemarch and a planned 2011 film of the same name.

Davies also co-devised with Bernadette Davis the laddish sitcom Game On for BBC2 and co-wrote the first two series in 1995 and 1996.

The popularity of his adaptation of Michael Dobbs's political thriller House of Cards was a significant influence in Dobbs's decision to write two sequels, which Davies also adapted for television.

In film, he has collaborated on the screenplays for both of the Bridget Jones films, based on Helen Fielding's successful novels.

His previous career in education he drew upon in writing the campus-based comedy-drama series A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–88).

He is also a prolific writer for children. Beside the Guardian Prize-winning novel Conrad's War, he has written Alfonso Bonzo (book and television series), and the adventures of Marmalade Atkins (television series and numerous books). He also wrote the stories Dark Towers and Badger Girl for BBC TV's Look and Read series of programmes for schools audiences.

2008 saw the release of his adaptations of the 1999 novel Affinity by Sarah Waters, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (a film), Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit (a BBC series). Little Dorrit won 7 out of its 11 Emmy nominations and earned Davies an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries.

Planned adaptations of Dombey and Son, one of Dickens' lesser-read works, and Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels were both scrapped by the BBC in late 2009, following a previously announced move away from "bonnet dramas".

UK network ITV is looking to recreate its period drama success with Downton Abbey with new series Mr Selfridge, an initially eight-part serial written by Davies and starring Jeremy Piven due for scheduling in early 2013 .