Week 7: Lecture Notes - Ashley Pharoah

Lecture 6: Ashley Pharoah

Ashley Pharaoh was educated at Queen Elizabeth’s Sospital School, bristol, and the University of Sussex in Brighton. He then graduated from the National Film and Television School with WATER’S EDGE, a short coming-of-age film set in somerset. 

After Sussex, he enjoyed poetry and novels at Sussex, stayed another year in Kemptown to wait for his girlfriend to graduate from her French degree. 

Got paid £300 after hearing about a scriptwriting offer on Radio 4 and went for it. He aimed to get into the National Film and Television School and sent off his radio play and stories along with his application to the university and he got accepted.

Film School was very different to University education

No film theory or academic content, just discussion about filmmaking and practical situations. He struggled there, and enjoyed talking about narrative and story/script writing. 

His tutor gave him a plan. for two weeks when you wake up, go straight to your desk and write for an hour, not technique or craft, just raw material. Only they discussed it together when he completed the challenge which helped him create and story and set of characters. This results in Water's Edge that was a short bafta-nominated film. 

WATER’S EDGE was nominated for a short-film BAFTA and went on to win awards at the Chicago, Berlin and Bilbao Film Festivals. Wrote screenplay for his first feature, WHITE ELEPHANT, shot in Ghana and starring Peter Firth.

After swanning around Southern Africa writing obscure movies that nobody wanted to make, Ashley spent three years on the BBC soap EastEnders, he got an pilot episode to write and researched the show throughly, 12 million people watched the episode and he got a full pay-check. He knew this was his big chance to make for himself as he was living in London on the doll before this opportunity came his way.

He works mostly in drama-realism. In a mainstream way with a twist. 

Kudos Production company with Tony Jordan and Matthew Graham

where he taught the young Matthew Graham how to hold a pen. After writing on the first series of Silent Witness, he went on to create Where The Heart Is, a show that ran for ten years on the ITV Network. Other series that Ashley created and wrote during this time include PARADISE HEIGHTS, DOWN TO EARTH and LIFE SUPPORT. 

ANCHOR ME was a two-parter for Granada that starred Iain Glenn and Annette Crosbie. Also at this time, Ashley adapted TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS (starring Stephen Fry, produced by Company Pictures) and Thomas Hardy’s UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE (Keeley Hawes, produced by Eccosse), both for ITV. 

Finally, Ashley created and wrote the smash-hit family drama WILD AT HEART (starring Stephen Tompkinson) for Company Pictures which is currently in its sixth series. Wild At Heart was remade as LIFE IS WILD for the CW Network in the USA.

After an infamous weekend in the seaside resort of Blackpool with Matthew Graham and Tony Jordan, Life on Mars was born. Although its gestation was long and sometimes frustrating, it burst onto British screens in 2006 to good reviews and good ratings and a clutch of awards. It was remade for ABC, starring Harvey Keitel. It was now that Ashley and Matthew formed Monastic Productions, and their first produced series were Ashes To Ashes (in association with Kudos Film And Television) and Bonekickers (with Mammoth Screen).

Life on Mars took 8 years to develop and write all the stories and episodes. It was re-written over 40 times. It went from BBC to Channel 4 then back to BBC before it got put into production.

It's about your talent and your drive, not so much your qualifications in this industry. Go with your instincts.

He now works as an executive producer on most of his shows.