Sean O'Connor (producer)
Encyclopedia
Sean O'Connor is a British producer, writer and director working in theatre, film, television and radio.
O'Connor is currently producing the feature film version of Terence Rattigan
's The Deep Blue Sea
directed by Terence Davies and starring Rachel Weisz
, Tom Hiddleston
and Simon Russell Beale
. The film is based on Rattigan's 1952 play which has previously been filmed in 1955, starring Vivien Leigh
and Kenneth More
. Produced by Camberwell Productions and Fly Films, The Deep Blue Sea
is due for release in 2011, the centenary of Rattigan's birth.
, both storylining and directing the programme. He introduced several popular characters including Kenton Archer, Lilian Archer, Fallon Rogers, Ed Grundy and Emma Carter. He was then appointed as Series Story Producer at the BBC soap, EastEnders
story-lining the award-winning Kat and Zoe Slater story, the domestic violence story featuring Little Mo, and Dot Cotton's marriage to Jim Branning. He went on to both produce and direct the show. Subsequently, he was appointed as Series Producer of Hollyoaks
(C4) and Family Affairs
(FIVE). O'Connor also produced Series III of Footballers' Wives
for Shed Productions as well as the re-booted version of Minder
starring Shane Richie
and Lex Shrapnel
for TalkbackThames
.
's drama The Ladies of the Corridor (1953) at the Finborough Theatre
and the first London revival of Christa Winsloe
's Children In Uniform (1931) (Madchen in Uniform
) at Battersea Arts Centre
. He is also a graduate of the BBC Drama Directors' Course.
The same year, he adapted and directed Vertigo (film)
based on the novel D'Entre Les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, which was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock
's film of 1958. This, the first stage adaptation of the story, retained the original French wartime setting of the novel. The play first appeared at Chester Gateway Theatre featuring Marcus D'Amico
, but was subsequently produced by Bill Kenwright
at the Theatre Royal Windsor starring Martin Shaw
and Jenny Seagrove
. A revival at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford starred Anthony Andrews
in the central role, replacing Martin Shaw.
In 2001, O'Connor adapted Winston Graham
's 1960 novel Marnie
for the stage which played at Chester Gateway Theatre and The Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke. The adaptation returned the story to Graham's original post-war British setting and preserved Graham's bleak ending.
In 2010, O'Connor adapted Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
as Juliet and Her Romeo which played at Bristol Old Vic
, directed by Tom Morris and starring Siân Phillips
, Michael Byrne
and Dudley Sutton
.
O'Connor is currently producing the feature film version of Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
's The Deep Blue Sea
The Deep Blue Sea
The Deep Blue Sea is a play by Terence Rattigan. Premiering in London on 6 March 1952, it was praised by critics and audiences who saw it as evidence that Rattigan's view of life was growing deeper and more complex. It also won praise for actress Peggy Ashcroft, who co-starred with Kenneth More...
directed by Terence Davies and starring Rachel Weisz
Rachel Weisz
Rachel Hannah Weisz born 7 March 1970)is an English-American film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues...
, Tom Hiddleston
Tom Hiddleston
Thomas William "Tom" Hiddleston is an English actor. He is perhaps best known for playing Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor.-Early life and education:...
and Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale, CBE is an English actor. He has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."-Early years:...
. The film is based on Rattigan's 1952 play which has previously been filmed in 1955, starring Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
and Kenneth More
Kenneth More
Kenneth Gilbert More CBE was a highly successful English film actor during the post-World War II era and starred in many feature films, often in the role of an archetypal carefree and happy-go-lucky middle-class gentleman.-Early life:Kenneth More was born in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the...
. Produced by Camberwell Productions and Fly Films, The Deep Blue Sea
The Deep Blue Sea
The Deep Blue Sea is a play by Terence Rattigan. Premiering in London on 6 March 1952, it was praised by critics and audiences who saw it as evidence that Rattigan's view of life was growing deeper and more complex. It also won praise for actress Peggy Ashcroft, who co-starred with Kenneth More...
is due for release in 2011, the centenary of Rattigan's birth.
Television and Radio
O'Connor worked as Producer of the long-running BBC radio soap serial The ArchersThe Archers
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...
, both storylining and directing the programme. He introduced several popular characters including Kenton Archer, Lilian Archer, Fallon Rogers, Ed Grundy and Emma Carter. He was then appointed as Series Story Producer at the BBC soap, EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
story-lining the award-winning Kat and Zoe Slater story, the domestic violence story featuring Little Mo, and Dot Cotton's marriage to Jim Branning. He went on to both produce and direct the show. Subsequently, he was appointed as Series Producer of Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...
(C4) and Family Affairs
Family Affairs
Family Affairs was a British soap opera broadcast on Five, from 1997 to 2005. It was the second programme to be broadcast on the channel on 30 March 1997, the channel's launch night...
(FIVE). O'Connor also produced Series III of Footballers' Wives
Footballers' Wives
Footballers' Wives is a British television drama surrounding the fictional Premier League Association football club Earls Park F.C., its players, and their wives. It was broadcast on the ITV network from 8 January 2002 to 14 April 2006...
for Shed Productions as well as the re-booted version of Minder
Minder (TV series)
Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...
starring Shane Richie
Shane Richie
Shane Richie is an English actor, comedian, singer and media personality, known for his portrayal of the character Alfie Moon in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders.-Early life and career beginnings:...
and Lex Shrapnel
Lex Shrapnel
-Early life:Shrapnel was born in London, the son of Francesca Ann and actor John Shrapnel. He is the brother of actor/producer Tom Shrapnel and writer Joe Shrapnel and the grandson of Academy Award-nominated Scottish actress Deborah Kerr...
for TalkbackThames
TalkbackTHAMES
Talkback Thames is a British television production company, a division of FremantleMedia . It was formed by the merger of Talkback Productions and Thames Television, the former ITV network franchisee for London on weekdays between 1968 and 1992...
.
Directing
As a graduate of the Regional Theatre Young Directors' Scheme, O'Connor has worked all over the UK as a theatre director. His work has featured at Liverpool Everyman, Hornchurch, Salisbury Playhouse, Chester Gateway, Windsor, Guilford, Bath, Richmond, Chichester, Cardiff and Edinburgh. In 1995, O'Connor directed the UK premiere of Dorothy ParkerDorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
's drama The Ladies of the Corridor (1953) at the Finborough Theatre
Finborough Theatre
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty seat theatre in the Earls Court area of London, United Kingdom , which presents new British writing, UK and premieres of new plays, primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, music theatre, and rarely seen...
and the first London revival of Christa Winsloe
Christa Winsloe
Christa Winsloe was a 20th century German-Hungarian novelist, playwright and sculptor, best known for her play Gestern und heute, filmed in 1931 as Mädchen in Uniform and the 1958 remake.- Biography :...
's Children In Uniform (1931) (Madchen in Uniform
Mädchen in Uniform
Mädchen in Uniform is a 1931 German feature-length film based on the novel and play Gestern und heute by Christa Winsloe and directed by Leontine Sagan with significant artistic direction from Carl Froelich, who funded the film...
) at Battersea Arts Centre
Battersea Arts Centre
The Battersea Arts Centre is a performance space near Clapham Junction in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth that specialises in music and theatre productions.-History:...
. He is also a graduate of the BBC Drama Directors' Course.
Writing
O'Connor has made a study of 20th Century drama, particularly neglected or forgotten works. In 1997 O'Connor wrote Straight Acting; Popular Gay Drama from Wilde to Rattigan about the strategies by gay male playwrights who dominated the West End in the 20th Century.The same year, he adapted and directed Vertigo (film)
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
based on the novel D'Entre Les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, which was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's film of 1958. This, the first stage adaptation of the story, retained the original French wartime setting of the novel. The play first appeared at Chester Gateway Theatre featuring Marcus D'Amico
Marcus D'Amico
Marcus D'Amico is a film, TV and stage actor best known for his role as Michael "Mouse" Tolliver in the original Tales of the City miniseries in 1993. However, he has appeared in theater productions for over 15 years...
, but was subsequently produced by Bill Kenwright
Bill Kenwright
Bill Kenwright CBE is a leading West End theatre producer and film producer.He is also the Chairman of Everton Football Club, an English professional football club from the city of Liverpool....
at the Theatre Royal Windsor starring Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in shows such as The Professionals, The Chief, Judge John Deed and Inspector George Gently.-Theatrical background:...
and Jenny Seagrove
Jenny Seagrove
Jennifer Ann Seagrove is an English actress. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and rose to fame playing the lead in a TV dramatisation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance and the 1983 film Local Hero...
. A revival at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford starred Anthony Andrews
Anthony Andrews
-Life and career:Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes , a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, a musical arranger and musical conductor. He grew up in the North Finchley district of London...
in the central role, replacing Martin Shaw.
In 2001, O'Connor adapted Winston Graham
Winston Graham
Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the The Poldark Novel series of historical fiction.-Biography:...
's 1960 novel Marnie
Marnie
Marnie is a 1961 English novel written by Winston Graham, about a young woman who makes a living by embezzling from her employers, moving on, and changing her identity. She is finally caught in the act by one of her employers, a young widower named Mark Rutland, who blackmails her into marriage...
for the stage which played at Chester Gateway Theatre and The Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke. The adaptation returned the story to Graham's original post-war British setting and preserved Graham's bleak ending.
In 2010, O'Connor adapted Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
as Juliet and Her Romeo which played at Bristol Old Vic
Bristol Old Vic
The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
, directed by Tom Morris and starring Siân Phillips
Siân Phillips
Jane Elizabeth Ailwên "Siân" Phillips, CBE, is a Welsh actress.-Early life:Phillips was born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales, the daughter of Sally , a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker-turned-policeman...
, Michael Byrne
Michael Byrne (actor)
Michael Byrne is an English actor noted for his roles on film and television. He has often been cast in Nazi military roles such as Colonel Vogel in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik in the BBC radio dramatisation of the novel Fatherland by Robert Harris...
and Dudley Sutton
Dudley Sutton
-Life:He served in the RAF as a mechanic before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from which he was later expelled.Known for his eccentricity, he became a cult figure after playing a gay biker in The Leather Boys . He married American actress Marjorie Steele in 1961; she had previously...
.