User:Albyjames/sandbox

'Alby James'

Alby (Albert) Samuel James OBE, FRSA (born 24 May, 1954 in Muswell Hill, London) is a British theatre director, screenwriter, script consultant and filmmaking tutor. He is currently course leader of the Diverse Directors Workshop at the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield which is sponsored by EON Productions (producers of the James Bond films) and Disney. This course aims to increase the number of women working in screen direction as well as people from BAME backgrounds and those with disabilities.

His life has been devoted to public service in the interests in promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in respect of representation in and my the film and broadcast media and the theatre, demonstrating by example in his creative work and in his membership of boards and participation in campaigns and workgroups to address ways of improving inclusion of cultural diversity and representation. In the New Year's Honours List in 2018, his work in these fields was recognised in being awarded an OBE for services to theatre, film and broadcasting.

He is the son of Albert Samuel James and Florence Casetta Renelda Thomas, British citizens born and raised in Jamaica who came to England separately in 1950 and who met soon after and settled in Crouch End in north London where they raised their family. His father was a mason (bricklayer) who worked for British Rail until he retired in June 1980, aged 65. One of his father's proudest achievements was in being able to buy his own home in 1954, four years after settling in London, and raising five children.

In recent years Alby has split his time between developing feature films and high-end TV drama projects with writers and writer/directors in script labs in the UK, South Africa and Russia but he has also been formative in establishing training schemes, standards and training of key creatives for writing, directing and producing drama and feature films. In South Africa he created a series of such programmes under the umbrella of the SEDIBA programme for the National Film & Video Foundation. He created and led a similar programme in Russia in 2010 under the aegis of Kultburo. Since 2006, he has also been an industry expert and mentor (as well as a jury member for the Script Station) for the Berlinale International Film Festival.

In 2007, he took up an invitation from James Bond producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, at EON Productions to join them as head of development to lead a new screenwriters' and feature film script development initiative called EON Productions' Screenwriters' Workshop. Prior to this, from 2000 he was head of screenwriting at the Northern Film School at Leeds Metropolitan University during which he worked closely with the newly-created UK Film Council and Skillset to improve the standards and geographical spread of training for screenwriting and script development to improve the economic and creative outcomes of the UK film and television industry.

In 1998/9 he worked as a consultant for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to modernise the broadcaster and enable it to produce a range of television programmes fit for a public service broadcaster in the new South Africa. This led to a total transformation of commissioning procedures and the ability of new producers, writers and directors from the formerly disadvantaged communities of South Africa to produce programmes for the corporation. This internal reformation was matched by external support for these new programme makers of drama by establishing a development lab that provided both training and project development for those involved. Including commissioning editors from the broadcaster and trainee script editors, 90 people were present in these labs in the two years it operated. 24 series were developed within it. The first dramas emerging from this process appeared on screen two years later in 2008, as scheduled, and achieved the highest viewing figures and audience and critical appreciation there had ever been.

In the early 90s, Alby worked primarily for BBC Radio Drama as a producer/director of radio drama. Prior to this, Alby was artistic director of Temba Theatre Company for nine years. In this period he turned around an ailing theatre company, making it a leader in its field and secured large sums in sponsorship. The company also won the LWT Plays on Stage Award for its especially-commissioned music theatre production, Glory, that was set in Trinidad at the time of independence. Melvyn Bragg's Southbank Show team made a programme made about the work of the company and its success during this time. Early on, the company proved its potential by winning the Samuel Beckett for Best First Play with its production of Mamma Decemba and the Manchester Evening News Award for Best of the Fringe with another production called Black Love Songs. Temba represented Britain abroad a few times with its production of Woza Albert! and its Cuban-set production of Romeo and Juliet at international festivals in The Netherlands, Spain and France.

Alby's free-lance productions at this time included the successful production of Porgy and Bess (1986) as Trevor Nunn's associate director at Glyndebourne Festival Opera (and for its revival at the Royal Opera House and the film in 1992) and August Wilson's award-winning play, Fences, in London's West End at The Garrick Theatre, starring Yaphet Kotto (1990).