Andy Harries

Andrew Harries (born 7 April 1954) is chairman 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. 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 until 2017.

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. 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. 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 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.

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.

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. The latter was directed by Harries and was edited together from a number of performances by Henry at the Hackney Empire in 1989. The Guardians 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. However, in 1992 he was accepted the position of controller of comedy at Granada and An Evening with Gary Lineker was made. Harries was disappointed that pressure from Granada's management had forced him to replace so many of the original stage cast; England was replaced by Paul Merton, leaving Caroline Quentin as the only original actor. In negotiating a second series with the BBC a few years later, another series from Aherne was included; The Royle Family, a sitcom featuring a working-class northern family, aired on BBC One from 1998 to 2000. The first two episodes were filmed with a studio audience, something Harries did not approve of. He scrapped these episodes and had them refilmed without a laugh track. The Royle Family returned for a one-off special in 2006, an achievement Harries described as giving him no greater pleasure. It won the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2002, which Harries collected with Bullen and Spencer Campbell. Harries executive produced two more series of Bullen's; Life Begins (2004–2006) and All About George (2005).

His first panel show produced came in 1999 with Mel and Sue's Casting Couch. The show was Mel and Sue's first programme made for ITV following the success of Light Lunch for Channel 4. Casting Couch had low viewing figures and was not recommissioned. It was one of several comedies commissioned by Harries in 1999 that were produced by Justin Judd. Others included Dark Ages and My Wonderful Life. Judd and Harries began developing Dark Ages—a sitcom set at the turn of the 2nd millennium—in 1997 but could not make it work with the writer at the time. They proposed it to Red Dwarf writer Rob Grant, who liked the idea, and wrote all six episodes. Dark Ages aired nightly during the Christmas 1999 period. A second series was proposed—Harries said it would "hit its stride" then—but ITV did not recommission it. My Wonderful Life was another ratings disaster. Harries blamed ITV Network Centre and publicly criticised the network, courting the ire of its director of channels David Liddiment. 2002 commissions included Doctor Zhivago and Henry VIII. ITV would provide only £750,000 for each hour of the serials, so Harries approached US broadcaster WGBH to make up the remaining funds. Following the merging of Granada Films with Granada Productions in 2002, Harries's brief was expanded to include films.

2003 was a significant year for Harries's drama output; Peter Morgan approached Granada with an idea for a drama documenting the conjectured pact between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before the 1994 Labour Party leadership election. Granada's chief executive Charles Allen was not keen on producing The Deal but Harries and John Whiston persuaded him otherwise. ITV initially agreed to show it but pulled out before filming began. Harries offered it to Channel 4, who took it within 24 hours. The Deal was a critical success and won the British Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama. That same year Harries brought back the drama serial Prime Suspect, which had not been produced since the star Helen Mirren quit in 1995. Mirren agreed to return for Prime Suspect: The Last Witness only if it was "about something". In 2004, Harries was ranked number eleven on a list of the most powerful figures in British TV drama, compiled by industry experts for the Radio Times.

During the read-throughs for The Last Witness Harries watched other actors and production staff react to Mirren as if she was "like the Queen". Already in pre-production was a follow-up to The Deal that would focus on the royal family in the week following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Peter Morgan was due to return as the writer, Stephen Frears was signed on as director and Harries suggested to Mirren that she play the Queen. Mirren agreed and the film, co-produced by Granada and Pathé, was released in September 2006. Among the numerous awards for which it was nominated were the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Academy Award for Best Picture (the former it won). At the end of the year he announced that he would not be renewing his contract with the company. Entertainment industry commentators suggested that he would set up his own independent production company.

Left Bank Pictures (2007–present)

Rumours that he would start his own company, possibly with Caroline Aherne, had circulated since the 1990s. Left Bank was the first British production house to receive investment from BBC Worldwide, and there was some concern that there was a conflict of interest for the publicly funded BBC; in The Guardian, Steve Hewlett wrote that the deal was a "back-door way of getting around the rules preventing the BBC producing programmes for its British rivals". Hewlett also commented that the investment might limit Left Bank's future prospects, as it was "tied to" the BBC. At Left Bank, Harries proposed to produce two features films per year, as well as several television series. The company's first television commission is Wallander, a three-part series based on Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels. The series was made in association with Swedish company Yellow Bird for the BBC. It was broadcast in November and December 2008, and a second series followed in 2010. Also broadcast in 2009 was the comedy series School of Comedy and the crime drama Father & Son. Comedy drama series Married Single Other was filmed for ITV and was broadcast in 2010.

On 23 August 2012, Sony Pictures Television acquired a majority stake in Left Bank.

In 2017, Left Bank produced The Replacement for BBC One which went on to win Best Television Scripted at BAFTA Scotland.

The Crown is Left Bank's biggest project to date, the first American-British television series produced exclusively for Netflix. The series has received wide critical acclaim, awards include; Golden Globes for Best Television Series (Drama) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series (Drama), Screen Actor's Guild Award for Claire Foy, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series in both 2017 and 2018 and an Primetime Emmy Award for John Lithgow, Outstanding Supporting Actor – Drama Series.

Left Bank's fourth feature film Dark River was released on 23 February 2018. Written and directed by Clio Barnard, it 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 various industry awards, including Best Independent Production Company at the Edinburgh TV Awards (2017) At the end of the year he was listed in Broadcasts Top 100 Producers, being described as "one of the UK's most outstanding drama producers". In May 2007, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded him the Special Award in Honour of Alan Clarke. In Broadcasts Top 100 for 2010, Harries was ranked at number two in the executive producers category. He received an Academy Award nomination as producer of The Queen which saw a run of six Academy Award nominations with Helen Mirren memorably winning Best Actress.

The Royal Television Society conferred a Fellowship on Harries on 23 May 2011 for outstanding contributions to the broadcasting industry.

Harries was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to film and television.

Personal life Harries has been married to writer and director Rebecca Frayn since July 1992.

Filmography

"Boy Soldiers" "Scramble For Cable"1984 Africa Director Television documentary series 1984–1988 The South Bank Show Director, producer 4 episodes of television series: "Malcolm McLaren" (1984) "Truman Capote" (1986) "Penguin Cafe Orchestra" (1987) "Lenny Henry" (1988)1985 Food for Thought Director Television documentary series1986 South of Watford Director, producer 2 episodes of television series "The Mutoid Waste Company" "Animation City"1987 A Short Sharp Shock Director, producer Television documentary1987 Arena Director, producer 2 episode of television series: "Martin Chambi and the Heirs of the Incas" "Iquitos" 1990 Omnibus Director, producer 1 episode of television series: