Christopher Hall (producer)
Encyclopedia
Christopher Hall is a British TV drama producer also known as Chris Hall.
He is the son of Sir Peter Hall (director) and Leslie Caron
and was educated at Bedales School and St Catharines College, Cambridge. He has produced dramas for the BBC
, ITV
and Channel 4
networks and worked both in-house and as a freelancer for major British production companies including Kudos
. He started his career as an assistant director on feature films with David Hare (Strapless), (Paris by Night), Ken Russell
(The Lair of the White Worm) and as a floor manager and/or assistant director on TV shows such as Inspector Morse
. Working his way up, he became a Line Producer and then a fully fledged Producer. In 1996 he produced The Final Passage, directed by his father Sir Peter Hall, which won BAFTA and RTS
awards for Cinematography.
Hall's best known productions include The Lost World
starring Peter Falk
, Bob Hoskins
, James Fox
and Matthew Rhys in 2001. The production was noted for stripping the Conan Doyle
text of racial overtones. He also produced Archangel in 2005 starring Daniel Craig
, which was adapted from a Robert Harris
thriller by Dick Clement
and Ian La Frenais
and filmed on location in Moscow and Latvia. In 2011 for Hat Trick
for ITV
Hall produced "Case Sensitive" starring Olivia Williams
Guardian Review. Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) was another of Halls' productions, which starred Richard E. Grant
, John Nettles
, Ian Hart
, Richard Roxburgh
and Geraldine James
and received a BAFTA nomination for best sound. Aristocrats, based on the Stella Tillyard
biography of the Lennox
sisters in 1999 was another major production. One of Hall's drama productions, made as a Christmas show for the BBC in 2003, was the BAFTA-winning The Young Visiters
starring Jim Broadbent
, Hugh Laurie
, Bill Nighy
, Sally Hawkins
and Simon Russell Beale
. It was narrated by Alan Bennett
, and directed by David Yates
. The score, by Nicholas Hooper
, won the BAFTA award for Original Television Music.
Christopher Hall is particularly known for attention to detail in post-production and for special effects, and won an Emmy award for producing the animated natural history drama, Pride
, which featured sophisticated special effects. As producer, he was responsible for hiring an outstanding cast to voice the lions, including Kate Winslet
, Helen Mirren
, John Hurt
, Robbie Coltrane
, Jim Broadbent
, Sean Bean
, Martin Freeman
, Rupert Graves
, and Kwame Kwei-Armah
. He was hired specifically as post-production producer by Power (Powercorp) in 2011, on a drama called Ice.
In 2011 he Produced Hidden, a four part drama written by Ronan Bennett starring Philip Glenister. He is currently engaged on Labyrinth for Scottfree.
Christopher Hall is the half brother of film actress Rebecca Hall
and of Edward Hall
the artistic director of Hampstead Theatre
.
AS ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
He is the son of Sir Peter Hall (director) and Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
and was educated at Bedales School and St Catharines College, Cambridge. He has produced dramas for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
and Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
networks and worked both in-house and as a freelancer for major British production companies including Kudos
Kudos
Kudos is an English word meaning acclaim or praise for exceptional achievement.Kudos may also refer to:* KUDOS, a vocational-counseling computer program* Kudos , a chocolate-covered cereal bar...
. He started his career as an assistant director on feature films with David Hare (Strapless), (Paris by Night), Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
(The Lair of the White Worm) and as a floor manager and/or assistant director on TV shows such as Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse is a fictional character in the eponymous series of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter, as well as the 33-episode 1987–2000 television adaptation of the same name, in which the character was portrayed by John Thaw. Morse is a senior CID officer with the Thames Valley...
. Working his way up, he became a Line Producer and then a fully fledged Producer. In 1996 he produced The Final Passage, directed by his father Sir Peter Hall, which won BAFTA and RTS
RTS
RTS is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to:* Real-time strategy, a gaming genre* Reclaim the Streets, an organization* Reformed Theological Seminary, a theological seminary in the United States* Return to Sender...
awards for Cinematography.
Hall's best known productions include The Lost World
The Lost World (2001 film)
The Lost World is a 2001 adaptation of the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by Stuart Orme and adapted by Adrian Hodges. It was filmed at various locations on the West Coast of New Zealand. The film was produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom and A&E in the United...
starring Peter Falk
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...
, Bob Hoskins
Bob Hoskins
Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...
, James Fox
James Fox
James Fox, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:James Fox was born in London, England to theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and film producer Robert Fox. The actress Emilia Fox is his niece and the actor Laurence Fox is his son. His...
and Matthew Rhys in 2001. The production was noted for stripping the Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle is a rugby player. His club is Garryowen. His usual position is inside centre, but he also plays out-half. He has made two appearances for Munster Rugby in the Magners League, but was released by Munster at the end of the 2008/2009 season. While at Munster he was selected for the...
text of racial overtones. He also produced Archangel in 2005 starring Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
, which was adapted from a Robert Harris
Robert Harris
Robert Harris or Rob Harris may refer to:* Robert Harris , MP for Steyning* Robert Harris , English Puritan* Robert Harris , governor of Anguilla...
thriller by Dick Clement
Dick Clement
Dick Clement, OBE is an English writer.Born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England, Clement was educated at Bishop's Stortford College and is best known for his writing partnership with Ian La Frenais. Generally, Clement and La Frenais write comedies, or dramas with a comic tone...
and Ian La Frenais
Ian La Frenais
Ian La Frenais, OBE, , is an English writer best known for his creative partnership with Dick Clement. They are most famous for television series including, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.They have also written various other work...
and filmed on location in Moscow and Latvia. In 2011 for Hat Trick
Hat Trick
Hat trick, hat-trick or hattrick may refer to:* hat-trick — in various sports, achieving three goals, wickets, etc. in a single match* Hattrick — online football management game** Hattrick Limited — producers of this game...
for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
Hall produced "Case Sensitive" starring Olivia Williams
Olivia Williams
Olivia Haigh Williams is an English film, stage and television actress who has appeared in British and American films and television series.-Early life:Williams was born in Camden Town, London, England...
Guardian Review. Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) was another of Halls' productions, which starred Richard E. Grant
Richard E. Grant
Richard E. Grant is a Swaziland-born British actor, screenwriter and director. His most notable role came in the film Withnail and I. He holds dual British and Swazi citizenship.-Early life:...
, John Nettles
John Nettles
John Vivian Drummond Nettles, OBE is an English actor, historian and writer who is best known for playing the lead roles in Bergerac and Midsomer Murders.-Early life:...
, Ian Hart
Ian Hart
Ian Hart is an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family...
, Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh is an Australian actor who has starred in many Australian films and has appeared in supporting roles in a number of Hollywood productions, usually as villains.-Early life:...
and Geraldine James
Geraldine James
Geraldine James, OBE is an English actress.-Early life and family:James was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to a cardiologist father...
and received a BAFTA nomination for best sound. Aristocrats, based on the Stella Tillyard
Stella Tillyard
Stella Tillyard is a British author and historian born in 1957, best known for the best-selling Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 which was made into a BBC Miniseries in 1999.-From academic to novelist:...
biography of the Lennox
Lennox
Lennox may refer to:* Lennox , often referred to as "The Lennox", an historic mormaerdom, earldom and then dukedom, in Stirling, Scotland* Lennox International, a global manufacturer of furnaces and central air conditioners....
sisters in 1999 was another major production. One of Hall's drama productions, made as a Christmas show for the BBC in 2003, was the BAFTA-winning The Young Visiters
The Young Visiters
The Young Visiters or Mister Salteena's Plan is a 1919 novel by Daisy Ashford. Ashford wrote the novel at the age of nine, in 1890, in an exercise book. Full of spelling mistakes, each chapter was also written as a single paragraph...
starring Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
, Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
, Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...
, Sally Hawkins
Sally Hawkins
Sally Cecilia Hawkins is an English actress. Her performance as Poppy in the 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky won her several international awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy...
and Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale, CBE is an English actor. He has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation."-Early years:...
. It was narrated by Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
, and directed by David Yates
David Yates
David Yates is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter film series. He helmed the series' fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth installments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially...
. The score, by Nicholas Hooper
Nicholas Hooper
Nicholas Hooper is a British film and television composer. He has scored the award-winning BBC productions Land of the Tiger and Andes to Amazon, as well as the TV movies The Girl in the Café and My Family and Other Animals among others...
, won the BAFTA award for Original Television Music.
Christopher Hall is particularly known for attention to detail in post-production and for special effects, and won an Emmy award for producing the animated natural history drama, Pride
Pride
Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two common meanings. With a negative connotation, pride refers to an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments, often used synonymously with hubris...
, which featured sophisticated special effects. As producer, he was responsible for hiring an outstanding cast to voice the lions, including Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
, Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
, John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, Robbie Coltrane
Robbie Coltrane
Robbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr...
, Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
, Sean Bean
Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
, Martin Freeman
Martin Freeman
Martin John C. Freeman is an English actor. He is known for his roles as John in Love Actually, Tim Canterbury in the BBC's Golden Globe-winning comedy The Office, Arthur Dent in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. John Watson in Sherlock and Mr. Madden...
, Rupert Graves
Rupert Graves
Rupert Graves is an English film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as DI Lestrade in the critically acclaimed television series Sherlock.-Early life:...
, and Kwame Kwei-Armah
Kwame Kwei-Armah
Kwame Kwei-Armah, is a British actor, playwright, singer and broadcaster. In 2005 he became the second black Briton to have a play staged in the West End...
. He was hired specifically as post-production producer by Power (Powercorp) in 2011, on a drama called Ice.
In 2011 he Produced Hidden, a four part drama written by Ronan Bennett starring Philip Glenister. He is currently engaged on Labyrinth for Scottfree.
Christopher Hall is the half brother of film actress Rebecca Hall
Rebecca Hall
Rebecca Maria Hall is an English actress.In 2003, Hall won the Ian Charleson Award for her debut stage performance in a production of Mrs. Warren's Profession...
and of Edward Hall
Edward Hall
Edward Hall , English chronicler and lawyer, was born about the end of the 15th century, being a son of John Hall of Northall, Shropshire....
the artistic director of Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
.
Productions
- Hidden 2011 BBC Article
- Case Sensitive 2011 Guardian Article
- Ice 2011
- The FixerThe Fixer (TV series)The Fixer is a British drama television series, produced by Kudos for ITV. Set in modern Britain, it follows the life of an ex-British Special Forces soldier arrested by police after he killed his aunt and uncle following his discharge from the military...
2008 - Burn Up 2008
- The Commander (4) 2006/ 2007
- Trial & RetributionTrial & RetributionTrial & Retribution is a feature-length ITV police proceduraltelevision drama series that began in 1997. It was devised and written by Lynda La Plante as a follow-on from her successful television series Prime Suspect. Each episode of the Trial & Retribution series is broadcast over two nights. The...
(6) 2005/2007 - Archangel (Robert Harris novel) 2005
- Pride 2004
- The Young VisitersThe Young VisitersThe Young Visiters or Mister Salteena's Plan is a 1919 novel by Daisy Ashford. Ashford wrote the novel at the age of nine, in 1890, in an exercise book. Full of spelling mistakes, each chapter was also written as a single paragraph...
2003 - The Hound of the BaskervillesThe Hound of the BaskervillesThe Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
2002 - The Lost WorldThe Lost World-Conan Doyle novel and adaptations:* The Lost World , a 1912 book* The Lost World , a silent film* The Lost World , set in Venezuela* The Lost World , set in Africa...
2001 - Other People's ChildrenOther People's Children (TV series)Other People's Children is a four-episode 2000 British television drama, adapted by Leigh Jackson from Joanna Trollope's 1998 novel of the same name...
2000 - Blue MurderBlue Murder (UK TV series)Blue Murder was a British crime drama television series based in Manchester. Shown on ITV from 2003 until 2009 when it was axed by the Network, it starred Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis.-Outline:...
2000 - Aristocrats 1999
- The Final PassageThe Final PassageThe Final Passage is Caryl Phillips's debut novel. First published in 1985, it is about the Caribbean diaspora exemplified in the lives of a young family from a small island of the British West Indies who decide to join the 1950s exodus to the mother country...
1996
AS ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
- Poirot 1996
- The Fragile Heart 1996 BAFTA award for Best Actor, Nigel HawthorneNigel HawthorneSir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne, CBE was an English actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the 1980s sitcom Yes Minister and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. For this role he won four BAFTA Awards during the 1980s in the...
- BugsBugsBugs may refer to:*Heteroptera, the taxonomic order, to which belong "true bugs" insects*arthropods, an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages*Bugs Bunny, an animated cartoon character...
1995 - Anna LeeAnna LeeAnna Lee, MBE was an English actress.-Career:Lee studied at the Royal Albert Hall, then debuted with a bit part in the film His Lordship...
1994 - London's BurningLondon's BurningLondon's Burning was a British television drama programme produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network that focused on the lives of members of the London Fire Brigade, principally those of the Blue Watch at a fictional fire station called Blackwall.It was broadcast between 1986 and...
1990-1994