John McKay
Directing
Biography
John McKay (born 1965) is a Scottish film and television director. His initial career was as a playwright, before he began his film career by directing the short films Doom and Gloom (1996) and Wet and Dry (1997). McKay's short films brought him some notable early acclaim: Wet and Dry was nominated in the "Best Short Fiction" category at the Molodist International Film Festival in Kyiv in 1997, Doom and Gloom won a "Special Mention" in the "Youth on Youth Award" category at the 1998 Locarno International Film Festival, and the "Best European Short Film" prize at the 1999 Brussels International Film Festival. After working on the television series Psychos for Kudos and Channel 4 in 1999, he directed his first full-length feature film, Crush, starring Andie MacDowell, Imelda Staunton, Anna Chancellor, and Kenny Doughty for which he also wrote the screenplay. Released in 2001, the film was originally to have been titled The Sad Fuckers Club, but this was changed after resistance from the producers and distributors and uneasiness on the part of test audiences. Crush met with a generally negative critical reaction, and a second feature that McKay had written and was planning to direct, the World War II-set Knickers, never saw production. Following Crush McKay returned to television, in 2003 directing "The Miller's Tale" and "The Sea Captain's Tale" for BBC One's updated versions of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, where the events of the stories were transposed to contemporary settings. "The Miller's Tale", which opened the series, proved to be a particular success, with an audience of 7.6 million viewers and a mixed but generally favourable critical reaction. In 2004 McKay returned to the cinema with his second full-length feature, directing Academy Award-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes's adaptation of P. G. Wodehouse's novel Piccadilly Jim. He continued to direct for television, in 2006 helming the third and fourth instalments of the time travel/police drama series Life on Mars. Life on Mars gained particular critical and popular acclaim, with reviewer Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian describing McKay's second episode, the series' fourth, as "an inspired take on the usual formula of Gruff Copper of the old school." Later that same year he directed the opening two episodes of the channel's new Robin Hood series. In 2007 McKay directed Reichenbach Falls, a 75-minute one-off drama for digital television channel BBC Four, adapted by James Mavor from a short story by Ian Rankin. Another one-off drama for BBC Four, We'll Take Manhattan, about the relationship between model Jean Shrimpton and photographer David Bailey, was broadcast in January 2012. McKay both wrote and directed We'll Take Manhattan. His third full-length feature film, Not Another Happy Ending, from a script by David Solomons, was released in 2013.
Known For

Created from the novels by award winning crime writer Ann Cleeves, Shetland follows DI Jimmy Perez and his team as they investigate crime within the close knit island community. In this isolated and sometimes inhospitable environment, the team have to rely on a uniquely resourceful style of policing.
Shetland

A motley group of London con artists pull of a series of daring and intricate stings.
Hustle

An updated series following the life of Robin Hood and his Merry Men in Sherwood forest. Together they steal from the rich and give to the poor - all the while avoiding their enemies Sir Guy of Gisborne and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Robin Hood

A detective chief inspector from 2006 is investigating a serial killer when he is knocked over by a speeding car. Waking up, he finds himself mysteriously transported back in time to 1973. Initially struggling to come to terms with his situation, he has to come to terms with the old-fashioned technology and attitude of the day, while figuring out how he came to be trapped in the past.
Life on Mars

Six single dramas adapted from six of Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century Canterbury Tales, transferred to a modern, 21st century setting, but still set along the traditional Pilgrims' route to Canterbury.
Canterbury Tales

Sex, lies and true love in modern Scotland. Following the lives and loves of a group of twenty-something lesbians living in Glasgow.
Lip Service

Focuses on manic-depressive psychiatrist Daniel Nash, and the Glasgow mental hospital where he works.
Psychos

Three 40-something women in a small English town meet weekly for a ritual of gin, cigarettes, and sweets -- and swapped stories arguing which of them has the most pathetic love life. Kate is headmistress at the local school; her best friends are the town's police chief and a cynical, thrice-divorced doctor.
Crush

Set in the 1930s, an American with a scandalous reputation on both sides of the Atlantic must do an about-face in order to win back the woman of his dreams.
Piccadilly Jim

When England won the World Cup in July 1966 Bobby Moore became a national hero. Swept up by the media frenzy and the nation’s adoration, he and wife Tina were the original ‘golden’ couple.
Tina & Bobby

All is not what it appears at Lizzie's new school. There’s something seriously spooky about the strange Headmaster and Lizzie is determined to find out what’s going on, before it’s too late.
The Demon Headmaster

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

When a struggling publisher discovers his only successful author is blocked, he knows he has to unblock her or he's finished. With her newfound success, she's become too happy and she can't write when she's happy. The only trouble is, the worse he makes her feel, the more he realizes he's in love with her.
Not Another Happy Ending
A psychological thriller, set in the heart of Edinburgh and featuring the underbelly of the capital city, Reichenbach Falls tells the story of hard-boiled detective Jim Buchan whose life starts to unravel as he investigates a 100-year-old murder case in the Scottish capital with an old friend - a crime writer researching the new novel. Buchan's investigation takes him into the dark underworld of Edinburgh's literary past and leads him to question the very nature of his own existence.
Reichenbach Falls

Anthropologist Max Scarry mysteriously disappears while doing excavation/research of a lost New Zealand tribe on a remote island. His wife and his twin brother Edward are clueless as to what could have happened, a situation complicated by their city's police suspecting that one of the brothers murdered a local prostitute who was found with a strange tribal charm on her body matching one found in Max's abandoned hut. What most certainly isn't helping matters is the strange behavior of Max's daughter as she seems to have visions beyond possibility, warnings of a supernatural threat and her uncle's fate - and she's the film's narrator, to boot. Edward decides to go to the island to find out exactly what happened, but the deeper he goes into the mystery the more perilous and unknowable his world becomes, leading towards a shocking fate that raises more questions than it answers. (cont. http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.de/2014/10/the-threat-of-ancient-echoes-lost-tribe.html)
The Lost Tribe

Kira and Ian – both in their mid-30s – meet on a winter weekend on the Isle of Skye. Both are on the run – from their past as well as from the reality of their current lives. The 36 hours they spend together are characterized by fun and lightness. A deep, almost magical connection develops between the two strangers. Everything seems possible. But fate tears them apart again. They both return to London, unaware that they live in the same city. Often only a few minutes, meters and coincidences apart, Kira and Ian move through the pulsating city; they never meet. They first have to face their demons before they are ready to really meet.
Falling into Place

We’ll Take Manhattan explores the explosive love affair between sixties supermodel Jean Shrimpton and photographer David Bailey. Focusing on a wild and unpredictable 1962 Vogue photo shoot in New York, the drama brings to life the story of two young people falling in love, misbehaving and inadvertently defining the style of the Sixties along the way.
We'll Take Manhattan

Follows Tracy and her daughter Jess, as they try to scrape by financially, but with a close and loving bond that Tracy missed out on with her own mum.
My Mum Tracy Beaker

Follow Phoebe, her older sister Becks, younger brother Perry and their mum who are living a comfortable life in Glasgow when suddenly they are uprooted from their lives and moved to the remote highlands of Scotland.
The Primrose Railway Children

Two sisters torn from their home in Nigeria and sold into slavery try to retake their freedom in a foreign and hostile land, attempting to elude their master in the perilous Scottish Highlands.