Fear, Stress and Anger
Biographies
Peter Davison
Peter Davison became a household name when he played the part of Doctor Who for three years.
He has since gone on to show his versatility in such programmes as six series of the BBC drama, All Creatures Great And Small; At Home With The Braithwaites; four series of The Last Detective; and A Quick Guide To Parenting.
Other television appearances include: Distant Shores (two series); Hardware; Too Good To Be True; Mrs Bradley Mysteries: Death Of The Opera; Dear Nobody; Wuthering Heights; Jonathan Creek; The Stalker's Apprentice; Cuts; A Man You Don't Meet Every Day; Ain't Misbehaving (two series); Heavenly Bodies (BBC Documentaries); Harnessing Peacocks; Kinsey; A Very Polish Practice; A Very Peculiar Practice (two series); Fiddlers Three; Campion (two series); Magnum PI; Tales Of The Unexpected; Miss Marple; Anna Of The Five Towns; Sink Or Swim (three series); Holding The Fort (three series); Blackmail; Love For Lydia; and The Tomorrow People.
Theatre includes: Under The Doctor (PW Prods); Chicago (Adelphi Theatre); Dial M For Murder (PW Prods tour); An Absolute Turkey (Globe Theatre); The Last Yankee (Young Vic and Duke Of York); The Decorator (Yvonne Arnaud and Tour); Arsenic And Old Lace (Chichester); The Owl And The Pussycat (tour); Barefoot In The Park (Bromley and Tour); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lyceum, Edinburgh); Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead (Lyceum, Edinburgh); Hamlet (Lyceum, Edinburgh); The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (Lyceum, Edinburgh); and The Taming Of The Shrew (Open Space).
Peter has appeared in three films: Parting Shots, Black Beauty and Molly.
Pippa Haywood
Pippa Haywood is very familiar to television audiences. She played Gordon Brittas' long-suffering – and often very drunk – wife, Helen, in the long-running series The Brittas Empire, and the endearingly batty and highly-sexed Joanna in Green Wing, for which she won the Rose D'Or for Best Comedy Actress at the Montreux Festival.
Other television appearances include: Like Father, Like Son; Inspector Linley; The Bill; Love Or Money; Dalziel And Pascoe; Holby City; My Family; Office Gossip; Mike And Angelo; Roger, Roger; Goodnight Sweetheart; The Bill; Tangier Cop; Jonathan Creek; Grown-Ups; Cuts; Headhunters; House Of Elliot; Chimera; Boon; Capital City; Shelly; Home James; Brushstrokes; The One Game; and The Last Word.
She appeared in the feature film, If Only.
Theatre includes: House & Garden (Salisbury); Private Lives (Farnham); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Regent's Park); A Winter's Tale (Regent's Park); Requiem (Theatro Technis); The Importance Of Being Earnest (Wolsey Theatre); Double Double (Derby Playhouse); Black Comedy/Private Ear (Bill Kenwright Prods); Turkey Time (Bristol Old Vic); The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe; and The Tempest (Ludlow Festival).
For The Bristol Old Vic Company, Pippa appeared in: The Archbishop's Ceiling; Harvey; Richard II; Good; The Voysey Inheritance; Rosencrantz & Guildernstern Are Dead; and This Happy Breed.
Daisy Aitkens
Daisy Aitkens trained at LAMDA. Television appearances include: Casualty; The Bill; and Life As We Know It.
Theatre includes a number of plays for the Frinton Season 2005: The Woman In Black; Relatively Speaking; In Two Minds; Life Time Three; The Man Of Destiny; The Real Inspector Hound; and The Sneeze.
For The Frinton Theatre: Lettuce & Lovage; Ghosts; Family Circles; The Importance Of Being Earnest; Dead Of Night; and Private Lives.
For The Gate Theatre: Pains Of Youth.
She has appeared in one short film called The Cross Of Joshua Home.
Georgia Moffett
The daughter of Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson, Georgia's television appearances include: The Quest II; The Bill; and Peak Practive VII.
She appeared in Getting Through at The Royal Court Theatre and In Doctor Who: Red Dawn on the radio.
Eileen Essell
Eileen Essell became an actress when she left university, working in the theatre "because television hardly existed that long ago!"
She worked continuously for 12 years. She then married a playwright and decided, in her early thirties, to earn a living so she could stay in one place.
She returned to acting nine years ago when she was spotted by an agent: "He told me: 'You're very old, you have white hair and all your marbles – I think you're marketable'.
"In just three weeks I was doing my first television! Isn't that amazing! I've been so lucky…"
Film appearances include: Hold Me-Touch Me in The Producers; Grandma Josephine In Charlie And The Chocolate Factory; Mrs Connolly In Our House; Mrs Snow in Finding Neverland; And Mrs Hughes In Ali G In Da House.
Television includes: Feel The Force; Casualty; Ideal; Hustle; Older Jennifer In French And Saunders; Grease Monkeys; The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale; Holby City; Strange; Final Demand; Being Dom Joly; The Bill; London's Burning; Dotcomedy; and Mr Jones' Office.
Theatre Includes: Hedda Gabler (Royal Exchange, Manchester); King Kong's Daughter (Royal Court Theatre); The Girl With Roses (Bloomsbury Theatre); The Love Of Four Colonels (Oxford Playhouse); The Browning Version (Oxford Playhouse); The Deep Blue Sea (Crucible, Sheffield); Macbeth (Crucible, Sheffield); The Heiress (Crucible, Sheffield); Twelfth Night (Crucible, Sheffield); The Constant Wife (Crucible, Sheffield); The Importance Of Being Earnest (Crucible, Sheffield); On Approval (Crucible, Sheffield); Hobson's Choice (Crucible, Sheffield); Three Waltzes (Globe Theatre, West End); and The Brontes (St James' Theatre, West End).
Radio includes The Nun's Priest Tale for the BBC.
Beryl Vertue OBE – Executive Producer
One of Britain's most respected producers, Beryl Vertue has an enviable track record of international success.
Originally, she was an agent for renowned comedy writers Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Johnny Speight, and comedy stars Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd.
In the sixties she formed Associated London Films. There, she was Associate Producer on The Spy With A Cold Nose;Executive Producer on the silent comedy The Plank starring Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper; followed by the feature film versions of Till Death Us Do Part, Steptoe And Son, Up Pompeii and a score of comparable films.
In 1967, Robert Stigwood invited Beryl to join his company, where she became Deputy Chairman and pioneered the original concept of selling basic television formats to Europe and America.
Two such formats became big hits in the USA – Till Death Us Do Part became Norman Lear's long-running series All In The Family, whilst Steptoe And Son became Sanford and Son.
Beryl then produced several star-studded Movies of the Week for all three American networks, including The Entertainer starring Jack Lemmon, and Cat and Mouse starring Kirk Douglas - the first television roles for both movie stars.
She also produced the Beacon Hill series, based on Upstairs Downstairs, for CBS, and Almost Anything Goes, based on It's A Knockout, for ABC.
Beryl's early British producing credits include the series The Prime Of Miss Jane Brodie and - one of her favourite achievements as executive producer - the film Tommy, starring Jack Nicholson, The Who, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Tina Turner.
In 1999, Beryl was made a member of the Royal Television Society Hall of Fame. Women in Film and Television honoured her with an award in the same year for 'Outstanding Contributions to the Industry'.
She was Chairman of PACT for three years and received an OBE in the 2000 New Year's Honours List for Services to Independent Television Production.
In 2004, she was given a Fellowship from the RTS and also received a Bafta; the Alan Clark Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television.
Sue Vertue – Producer
Sue Vertue started her working life as a Production Manager in the commercials world before joining Tiger Television in 1989.
She began producing in 1991 and her credits at Tiger include: nine of the 14 television programmes made of the internationally-renowned comedy Mr Bean (ITV) which won many awards around the world, including an ACE and an Emmy; The Vicar Of Dibley (BBC ONE), starring Dawn French (Bafta-nominated and Emmy winner 1998); Hospital, a comedy starring Greg Wise and Bob Peck, which was commissioned by Channel 5 for their opening night (Banff Award for Best Comedy 1998); Great Railway Journeys: Hong Kong To Ulan Batar (BBC ONE), presented by Clive Anderson; The Last Englishman (BBC ONE), an hour-long period drama starring Jim Broadbent (Bafta nomination for Best Single Drama); and Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, the sitcom for BBC TWO written by Jonathan Harvey, based on an idea by Sue Vertue and Jonathan Harvey and starring Kathy Burke and James Dreyfus (British Comedy Awards nomination 1999).
Sue left Tiger Aspect at the end of 1998 to produce Comic Relief 1999 for the BBC (British Comedy Awards winner). This six-hour live show broke all records for the amount of money raised on the night.
In April 1999 Sue joined her mother Beryl Vertue's company, Hartswood Films, where she produced another series of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (now in association with Tiger Aspect) - again frequently top of the BBC TWO weekly ratings.
Their first project together was the critically acclaimed hit BBC TV situation comedy Coupling, produced by Sue and written by Steven Moffat, a fourth series of which was screened in 2005.
Sue has also produced two series of Simon Nye's Carrie and Barry; and Supernova, starring Rob Brydon, a second series of which screened this year.
Michael Aitkens - Writer
Originally from London, Michael graduated from the American Film Institute (Los Angeles) in 1981. He lived in Australia for ten years and Los Angeles for two years.
He now lives back in London, where he works as a writer/producer, mainly on his own original series.
Michael recently formed his own independent production company, DaisyLu.
He has had more than 150 scripts produced in the UK, USA and Australia.
They include:
In the UK: The Last Detective series two (ITV); Waiting for God (BBC, 47 episodes of his original comedy series which ran for five years and for which he was Bafta-nominated); The River (BBC, 14 episodes, original comedy series); Roy's Raiders (BBC, seven episodes, original comedy series); Making News (Thames, pilot and three episodes, original newsroom drama); Stay Lucky (ITV, comedy drama, six episodes); Honey For Tea (BBC, seven episodes, original comedy); Class Act (ITV, 12 episodes, two series, original comedy drama); A Perfect State (BBC, seven episodes, original comedy); Harry and The Wrinklies (ITV, 19 episodes, children's series) and Life As We Know It (BBC, seven episodes, original comedy series).
In Australia: Division 4 (Crawford Productions, police show); Homicide (Crawford Productions, police show); Matlock Police (Crawford Productions, police show); Trial By Marriage (ABC Australia, 14 episodes, original comedy series); Sweet And Sour (ABC Australia, comedy/music series), A Country Practice (Channel 7 Australia, medical series, many episodes) and Woman Doctor (ABC Australia, medical series).
In the US: Alive and Kicking (NBC/Columbia, original comedy pilot with Olympia Dukakis).
Screenplays: Topenders (Australia Children's Film Foundation, original script); Brook (Portman Prods, thriller); Filthy Rich (Portman Prods, thriller); and Love and Vikings (Anthony Quinn/DaisyLu Prods, Comedy).
Stage: Bloody Harry (Independent Theatre, Sydney, black comedy).
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