Left Bank Pictures

Left Bank founders Marigo Kehoe (centre) and Andy Harries (right) with Wallander star Kenneth Branagh (left) in July 2009

Left Bank Pictures was founded in 2007 by Andy Harries, formerly controller of drama, comedy and film at Granada Productions, Francis Hopkinson and Marigo Kehoe.^[1] The company was the first British media company to receive equity investment from BBC Worldwide, the commercial venture of the BBC. BBC Worldwide took a 25% stake, worth £1 million, in Left Bank in exchange for first-look distribution rights on all television productions,^[2] in a five-year deal.^[3]

In December 2008, Left Bank Pictures was one of many independent production companies to receive the production vision award from the UK Film Council.^[4] The award part-funded Left Bank's film development slate. In February 2009, Suzanne Mackie, formerly head of development at Harbour Pictures, joined the company as head of film.^[5]

Hopkinson announced his departure in 2011 to take up a new position with ITV Studios. Michael Casey joined the company, taking on the development slate, and Simon Lupton joined the comedy department.^[6] The company was put up for sale for £40 million on 6 April 2012.^[3][7] On 5 July 2012, Sony Pictures Television made a deal to acquire Left Bank for £40 million.^[8] The sale was completed on 23 August 2012, with SPT becoming the majority shareholder, and BBC Worldwide, Harries and Kehoe reducing their stake in the company. BBC Worldwide reduced its stake from 25% to 12.2%.^[9] Sony Pictures Television intends to build Left Bank's international productions.^[10][11][12]

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Andy Harries

Andy Harries

Andrew Harries 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.

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcast abroad with the aim of supplementing the income received by the BBC through the licence fee.

BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom, based at Broadcasting House in London, England. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,900 are in public-sector broadcasting.

UK Film Council

UK Film Council

The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and governed by a board of 15 directors. It was funded from various sources including The National Lottery. John Woodward was the Chief Executive Officer of the UKFC. On 26 July 2010, the government announced that the council would be abolished. Although one of the parties elected into that government had, for some months, promised a bonfire of the Quangos, Woodward said that the decision had been taken with "no notice and no consultation". UKFC closed on 31 March 2011, with many of its functions passing to the British Film Institute.

ITV Studios

ITV Studios

ITV Studios is a British multinational television production and distribution company owned by the British television broadcaster ITV plc. It handles production and distribution of programmes broadcast on the ITV network and third-party broadcasters, and is based in 12 countries across 60 production labels, with local production offices in the UK, US, Belgium, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Israel, France, Spain and Scandinavia.

Sony Pictures Television

Sony Pictures Television

Sony Pictures Television Inc. is an American television production and distribution studio. Based at the Sony Pictures Studios complex in Culver City, it is a division of Sony Entertainment's unit Sony Pictures Entertainment and a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation.

Left Bank Pictures' first television commission was Wallander, a television adaptation of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels. The first series was filmed on location in Skåne, Sweden in the summer of 2008, and broadcast in November and December 2008.^[13] The series won the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series.^[14] The BBC announced the commissioning of a second series in May 2009.^[15] Filming ran over the summer again and the series was broadcast in January 2010. The final series as broadcast in 2016.

In March 2008, it was announced that Left Bank would be producing Strike Back, a six-part series for Sky1 based on Chris Ryan's novel.^[16] The production, starring Richard Armitage and Andrew Lincoln, was filmed on location in South Africa in 2009 for broadcast on Sky1 and Sky1 HD in 2010.^[17] Also in 2008, Left Bank produced its first feature film; The Damned United was directed by Tom Hooper from a script adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace's novel The Damned Utd.

2008 also saw Left Bank's first commission for Channel 4; Kids School of Comedy, a pilot sketch show, was produced for the Comedy Lab strand, and was based on a stage show in which Andy Harries' son performed. A six-part School of Comedy series was commissioned by E4 and was broadcast in 2009.^[18] A second series has since been commissioned. At the end of 2008, Left Bank received its first commission from ITV, to produce Frank Deasy's four-part serial drama Father & Son.^[19] The drama was co-financed by ITV, the Irish broadcaster RTÉ and the Irish Film Board. The production was based in Dublin, where most of the programme was filmed, even though it was set in Manchester, England.^[20] RTÉ broadcast the drama in 2009, and it went on to win the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Single Drama/Drama Serial category.^[21] It was broadcast on ITV1 in June 2010.

In 2009, Left Bank produced the six-part romantic comedy series Married Single Other for ITV.^[22] The series stars Ralf Little, Shaun Dooley, Lucy Davis, Miranda Raison, Amanda Abbington and Dean Lennox Kelly, and was filmed on location in Leeds. It was broadcast on ITV1 in February and March 2010.^[23][24] In 2010, Left Bank produced an adaptation of Peter Robinson's Aftermath for ITV, starring Stephen Tompkinson as DCI Banks,^[25][26] and Zen, an adaptation of three of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels, which was filmed on location in Italy for BBC Scotland.^[27] In 2011, Sky1 broadcast the first series of Left Bank's Mad Dogs, starring John Simm, Philip Glenister, Marc Warren and Max Beesley. In 2012 Optimum Releasing distributed the feature film All in Good Time.^[28][29]

Filmography

Television

• Wallander (2008−2016)
• Father & Son (2009)
• School of Comedy (2009−2010, piloted in 2008)
• Married Single Other (2010)
• Strike Back (2010−2015) (co-produced by Cinemax in 2011)
• DCI Banks (2010−2016)
• Zen (2011)
• Mad Dogs (2011−2013)
• Strike Back: Project Dawn (2011)
• Cardinal Burns (2012)
• Loving Miss Hatto — TV film
• The Ice Cream Girls (2013)
• Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This (2014)
• Outlander (2014–present)
• The Crown (2016−present)
• The Replacement (2017)
• The Halcyon (2017)
• Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (2017)
• Pls Like (2017-2021)
• Origin (2018)
• Quiz (2020)
• White Lines (2020)
• Behind Her Eyes (2021)
• Without Sin (2022)
• The Fear Index (2022)
• Three Pines (2022–present)

Film

• The Damned United (2009) (Distributed by Columbia Pictures)
• The Lady (2011) (Distributed by EuropaCorp (France), Entertainment Film Distributors (UK), Cohen Media Group (US), and Golden Scene Company Limited (Hong Kong))
• All in Good Time (2012)
• Dark River (2017)
• Misbehaviour (2020)

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Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell

Henning Georg Mankell was a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He also wrote a number of plays and screenplays for television.

Kurt Wallander

Kurt Wallander

Kurt Wallander is a fictional Swedish police inspector created by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell. He is the protagonist of many thriller/mystery novels set in and around the town of Ystad, 56 km (35 mi) south-east of the city of Malmö, in the southern province of Scania. Wallander has been portrayed on screen by the actors Rolf Lassgård, Krister Henriksson, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Adam Pålsson.

Skåne County

Skåne County

Skåne County, sometimes referred to as Scania County in English, is the most southern county, or län, of Sweden, basically corresponding to the traditional province Scania. It borders the counties of Halland, Kronoberg and Blekinge and connects to Capital Region, Denmark by the Öresund Bridge. The seat of residence for the Skåne Governor is the city of Malmö. The headquarters of Skåne Regional Council are located in both Kristianstad and Malmö.

British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series

British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series

The British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series is one of the major categories of the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), the primary awards ceremony of the British television industry. The category is described on the official BAFTA website as being open a drama series "of between two and 19 episodes, that is intended to return."

Chris Ryan

Chris Ryan

Colin Armstrong, usually known by the pen-name Chris Ryan, is a British author, television presenter, security consultant and former Special Air Service sergeant.

Richard Armitage (actor)

Richard Armitage (actor)

Richard Crispin Armitage is an English actor and author. He received recognition in the UK with his first leading role as John Thornton in the British television programme North & South (2004). His role as dwarf king and leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit brought him international recognition.

Andrew Lincoln

Andrew Lincoln

Andrew James Clutterbuck, known professionally as Andrew Lincoln, is an English actor. His first major role was as the character Egg in the BBC drama This Life (1996–1997). Lincoln later portrayed Simon Casey in the Channel 4 sitcom Teachers (2001–2003), Mark in the Christmas-themed romantic comedy film Love Actually (2003) and Dr. Robert Bridge in the ITV television series Afterlife (2005–2006).

Peter Morgan

Peter Morgan

Peter Julian Robin Morgan, is a British screenwriter and playwright. He is the playwright behind The Audience and Frost/Nixon and the screenwriter of The Queen (2006), Frost/Nixon (2008), The Damned United (2009), and Rush (2013). Morgan wrote the television films The Deal (2003), Longford (2006), and The Special Relationship (2010). He serves as creator and showrunner of the Netflix series The Crown (2016–present).

David Peace

David Peace

David Peace is an English writer. Best known for his UK-set novels Red Riding Quartet (1999–2002), GB84 (2004), The Damned Utd (2006), and Red or Dead (2013), Peace was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta in their 2003 list. His books often deal with themes of mental breakdown or derangement in the face of extreme circumstances. In an interview with David Mitchell he stated: "I was drawn to writing about individuals and societies in moments that are often extreme, and often at times of defeat, be they personal or broader, or both. I believe that in such moments, during such times, in how we react and how we live, we learn who we truly are, for better or worse."

Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It is publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is instead funded entirely by its own commercial activities, including publicity. It began its transmission in 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the licence-funded BBC One and BBC Two, and a single commercial broadcasting network ITV.

Comedy Lab

Comedy Lab

Comedy Lab is a British television series which showcases pilots of experimental comedy shows. Series have been aired irregularly on Channel 4 and E4 since 1998.

School of Comedy

School of Comedy

School of Comedy is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was turned into a television show after a successful run of review shows at the Edinburgh festival.

• Broadcast Award for Best Independent Production Company (2011) — Won^[30]