Tim Fywell Biography

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TIM FYWELL (Director) made his feature film directorial debut with the acclaimed and award-winning family drama “I Capture the Castle,” based on the novel by Dodie Smith about the fortunes of an eccentric British family struggling to survive in a decaying English castle.

One of England's most esteemed television directors, Fywell most recently completed the television films “Hear the Silence,” starring Juliet Stevenson and Hugh Bonneville, for Channel 5; and “Cambridge Spies,” four 1-hour shows starring Tom Hollander, Toby Stephens, Rupert Penry-Jones and Samuel West for BBC, which won the FIPA Special Prize for Drama Series in January 2004, as well as Grand Prizes for Best Actor and Original Score. Among his other television credits are “North Square” for Channel 4; “Madame Bovary” starring Frances O'Connor and Hugh Bonneville for BBC; “Touch and Go” starring Martin Clunes; “The Woman in White,” which earned a BAFTA Best Drama Serial nomination; “The Ice House” for BBC; “Norma Jean & Marilyn” starring Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino for HBO; “Cracker-True Romance” for Granada TV; “Life After Life” for BBC; and the celebrated “Cracker-To Be Somebody” with Robert Carlyle for Granada, which won a BAFTA Best Series Award and a Cable Ace Award nomination. Fywell's other credits include the BBC serials “A Dark Adapted Eye,” “Gallowglass” and “A Fatal Inversion”; and Channel 4's “A Fair and Easy Passage.”

Fywell's first love was theatre, to which he devoted himself while studying English at Cambridge University. After obtaining a degree, he returned to his native London in the mid-'70s, where he began his professional career directing new plays in fringe theatre before moving on to the West End. Some of his theatrical credits include “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” (Playhouse Theatre); “Skirmishes” (Hampstead Theatre); “Red Saturday” (Royal Court); “The Mother Country” (Riverside Studios); “Hitting Town” (Bush Theatre); “No Hand Signals” (National Theatre), which he wrote and directed; “I Made It Ma-Top of the World,” which he devised and directed at the Royal Court; and “Spring Awakening” (Royal Court). Fywell made the transition into television and film in the late '80s when he took the BBC's 3-month director's course to learn the technical aspects of filming. From there he went on to direct the long-running soap opera “Brookside,” which he shot in Liverpool for a year. Since then he's worked mainly in film with an occasional return to theatre.