William Boyd

William Andrew Murray Boyd CBE FRSL (born 7 March 1952) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Boyd was born in Accra, Gold Coast, (present-day Ghana), to Scottish parents, both from Fife, and has two younger sisters. His father Alexander, a doctor specialising in tropical medicine, and Boyd's mother, who was a teacher, moved to the Gold Coast in 1950 to run the health clinic at the University College of the Gold Coast, Legon (now the University of Ghana). In the early 1960s the family moved to western Nigeria, where Boyd's father held a similar position at the University of Ibadan. Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria and, at the age of nine, went to a preparatory school and then to Gordonstoun school in Scotland, and, after that, to the University of Nice in France, followed by the University of Glasgow, where he gained an M.A. (Hons) in English & Philosophy, and finally Jesus College, Oxford. His father died of a rare disease when Boyd was 26. Between 1980 and 1983 Boyd was a lecturer in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and it was while he was there that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published. He was also television critic for the New Statesman between 1981 and 1983. Boyd was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for services to literature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary Doctorates in Literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling, Glasgow, and Dundee and is an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. Boyd is a member of the Chelsea Arts Club. Boyd met his wife Susan, a former editor and now a screenwriter, while they were both at Glasgow University. He has a house in Chelsea, London and a farmhouse and vineyard (with its own appellation Château Pecachard) in Bergerac in the Dordogne in south-west France. In August 2014 Boyd was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. ... Source: Article "William Boyd (writer)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Works

Martin Amis: Money and Memories

Novelist William Boyd looks back on his long friendship with fellow writer Martin Amis, who died in May 2023 at the age of 73. Boyd's focus is on what many consider to be Martin's most successful work, 1984's Money, which introduced readers to the hedonistic would-be film-maker John Self. The character would be portrayed by actor Nick Frost in the BBC's dramatization of the novel in 2010, and here Boyd also discusses the challenges of screen adaptation generally, and why bringing Amis's work to the small screen was always going to be particularly challenging.

Release Date: 2023-08-02

Spy City

After a defector is murdered, British agent Fielding Scott is assigned to track down a mole in his own ranks in 1961 Berlin. His investigation leads him into a deadly web of crime, betrayal and paranoia. Who can Scott trust in the city of spies?

Release Date: 2020-12-03

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Episode Count: 6

Vote Count: 82

The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth

Based on William Boyd's short story collection, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth follows 22-year-old Bethany as she flits from one possible career to another looking for answers to life's most important questions.

Release Date: 2017-01-09

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 1

Restless

A young woman finds out that her mother worked as a spy for the British Secret Service during World War II and has been on the run ever since.

Release Date: 2012-12-27

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Episode Count: 2

Vote Count: 45

Any Human Heart

Logan Mountstuart, writer and adventurer, narrates his life, from the Paris of the twenties to the eighties in London, passing through the New York of the fifties.

Release Date: 2010-11-21

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Episode Count: 4

Vote Count: 6

Hockney on Photography and Other Matters

Hockney talks about his 40 year love affair with photography.

Release Date: 2009-11-13

Character: Self

Rabbit Fever

The Rabbit is the world's belling-selling vibrator. In the past year alone, millions have been sold all over the globe. Now experts are warning the Rabbit is becoming the new addiction; women who start using often find they simply cannot stop. RABBIT FEVER is the first film to follow the trials and tribulations of a group of Rabbit Addicts as they attempt to kick their Rabbit habit.

Release Date: 2006-09-22

Character: Self

Vote Count: 3

A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets

In 1609, William Shakespeare published a collection of 154 sonnets, creating what is arguably the greatest lyric sequence in English literature - and at the center of this masterpiece lies a mystery that has endured for centuries. What are the identities of “the young man” and “the dark lady” to whom all but two of the sonnets allude? This moving performance brings to life the gritty reality of Shakespeare’s England, bits of the Bard’s plays and poems, and the consummate poet and dramatist himself as it exposes these personages unseen but so keenly felt in Shakespeare’s sonnets and in his life. Rupert Graves, Tom Sturridge, Indira Varma, Anna Chancellor, and Zoë Wanamaker star. Contains mature themes and explicit language. Some content may be objectionable. Produced by the Open University.

Release Date: 2005-11-22

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 7

ShakespeaRe-Told

Four of Shakespeare's plays are dramatically relocated to the modern day.

Release Date: 2005-11-07

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Episode Count: 1

Vote Count: 13

Man to Man

An epic about anthropologists who hunt and capture pygmies for study back in Europe, in an attempt to illustrate the link between man and ape.

Release Date: 2005-04-13

Department: Writing

Job: Author

Vote Count: 39

Sword of Honour

Guy Crouchback joins the war effort during World War 2, an idealistic quest to join the forces of good in the fight against evil. But his efforts is not rewarded, he never has any chance to join any real fighting, circumstances always prevent it. Instead he finds himself in the middle of an army full of cowards, incompetents and a few outright evil men. They of course reap the fortunes of war, promotions and fame, but never Crouchback. His war is just an endless list of transfers and an hopeless but noble quest for righteousness.

Release Date: 2001-01-02

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 10

Sword of Honour

Sword of Honour is a two-part adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s semi-autobiographical World War II trilogy that aired Channel 4 in 2001. It centers on Guy Crouchback's, played by Daniel Craig, heroic quest to fight for a deep moral cause and to reclaim his manhood after a shattering divorce from the society beauty Virginia Troy.

Release Date: 2001-01-02

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Episode Count: 2

Vote Count: 3

Still Tickin': The Return of 'A Clockwork Orange'

Produced by Channel 4, Still Tickin´: The Return of A Clockwork Orange examines the controversy over Kubrick’s iconic film, explaining the film’s “demonic level of attention,” and its influence on culture, politics and society, which led to the director’s self-imposed ban.

Release Date: 2000-03-18

Character: Self

Vote Count: 7

The Trench

The Trench tells the story of a group of young British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916, the worst defeat in British military history. Against this ill-fated backdrop, the movie depicts the soldiers' experience as a mixture of boredom, fear, panic, and restlessness, confined to a trench on the front lines.

Release Date: 1999-09-17

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Vote Count: 90

A Good Man in Africa

Morgan Leafy is a secretary to the British High Commissioner to an Africa nation. Leafy is a man that makes himself useful to his boss, the snobbish Arthur Fanshawe, who has no clue about what's going on around him, but who wants to use his secretary to carry on his dirty work, which involves getting one of the most powerful men in the country to do business with his country.The young secretary has an eye for beautiful women around him, especially Hazel, a native beauty, with whom he is having an affair. Things get complicated because Sam Adekunle, a man running for president of the country, wants a favor from Leafy in return after he has accepted the invitation to visit London. The proposition involves swaying a prominent doctor's opposition to a plan that will make Adenkule filthy rich.

Release Date: 1994-07-14

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 37

Chaplin

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

Release Date: 1992-12-17

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 1107

Mister Johnson

In 1923 British Colonial Nigeria, Mister Johnson is an oddity -- an educated black man who doesn't really fit in with the natives or the British. He works for the local British magistrate, and considers himself English, though he has never been to England. He is always scheming, trying to get ahead, which lands him in a lot of hot water.

Release Date: 1991-03-22

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 29

Tune in Tomorrow...

Martin works at the local radio station, which just hired a new scriptwriter with a reputation for great drama, Pedro Carmichael. Martin’s aunt Julia, not related by blood, returns home after many years away and Martin falls for her. Once Pedro finds out about this romance, he starts incorporating details of it into the script of his daily drama series. Soon, Martin and Julia are not only hearing about their fictional selves over the radio, but about what they are going to do next.

Release Date: 1990-10-26

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 24

Scoop

Scoop is a 1987 TV film directed by Gavin Millar, adapted by William Boyd from the 1938 satirical novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. It was produced by Sue Birtwistle with executive producers Nick Elliott and Patrick Garland. Original music was made by Stanley Myers. The story is about a reporter sent to Ishmaelia (a fictional African state) by accident.

Release Date: 1987-04-26

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 5

Dutch Girls

In this sophomoric comedy, a lusty adolescent British hockey team heads for Holland where they find something far more interesting than tulips and windmills: gorgeous, lusty women. They are so busy pursuing romance that they forget all about their upcoming match.

Release Date: 1985-10-18

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 5

The Captain and the Enemy

A young boy is taken from his boarding school by a secretive stranger known simply as "the Captain".

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Nobody’s Heart

A beautiful, poetic story of love and loss, set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the thirties. As Lily is forced to confront the sudden and devastating death of her husband, she inherits his cork factory and begins to form an unexpected, highly charged relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Stars & Bars

A British art expert leaves New York to buy a long-lost Renoir from a Georgia eccentric.

Release Date: 1988-03-18

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 19

Good and Bad at Games

The story, told partly in flashback to 1968, concerns a clique of English public schoolboys who bully and humiliate an unpopular younger pupil (Cox) who is 'bad at games'. Ten years later Cox uses the naive and equal outsider Niles, who is only included in the clique because he is 'good at games', to find out more about the lead persecutor (Mount), in order to exact revenge

Release Date: 1983-12-18

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Apostrophes

Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.

Release Date: 1975-01-10

Character: Self

Episode Count: 2

Vote Count: 2