Philip John
Encyclopedia
Philip John is a Screenwriter and Director.
He played bass with DIY punk band Reptile Ranch. Along with Spike Reptile, Simon Smith and Andrew Tucker, he founded Z-Block Records; a non profit-making collective releasing records by fellow Cardiff based DIY bands, including the Young Marble Giants
. Philip dumped the music business following an ill-fated busking-trip to Paris with nine-piece kazoo band performing Motown numbers, and set about equipping himself to work as a film maker.
Following his award winning short films, "Suckerfish" and "Sister Lulu", Philip is now a freelance screenwriter director and MD of his own production company, and balances his professional career between his cinema development slate and directing Network television drama, to include Murphy's Law
, C4 feature length comedy Wedding Belles
written by Irvine Welsh
and Dean Cavanagh
and primetime series like the BBC's Ashes To Ashes.
He has also worked with Dean and Irvine on "Dose", a half hour comedy for BBC Wales
starring Julia Davies.
Other comedy collaborations include Chris Langham
's TV pilot "Seven Second Delay", and half hour spinechiller "Bradford In My Dreams", both written by and starring Chris Langham.
In 2009, Philip, with long time friends and collaborators actor Jonathan Owen and writer Dean Cavanagh, started indie production company Burn After Listening. The company's first project SVENGALI
, a satire on the Music Biz and released as a series of web virals, and (also available as free downloads from iTunes) stars Jonathan Owen
, Roger Evans, Alan Mcgee
, Sean Harris
and Sally Phillips
, as well as real life rock legends Carl Barat
, Maggot
and Bonehead
. SVENGALI is soon to become a television series with production company Burn After Listening Ltd producing.
He played bass with DIY punk band Reptile Ranch. Along with Spike Reptile, Simon Smith and Andrew Tucker, he founded Z-Block Records; a non profit-making collective releasing records by fellow Cardiff based DIY bands, including the Young Marble Giants
Young Marble Giants
Young Marble Giants were a post-punk band formed in Cardiff, Wales in 1978. A trio, their music was constructed around the powerful and minimal instrumentation of brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham along with the vocals of Alison Statton.-History:...
. Philip dumped the music business following an ill-fated busking-trip to Paris with nine-piece kazoo band performing Motown numbers, and set about equipping himself to work as a film maker.
Following his award winning short films, "Suckerfish" and "Sister Lulu", Philip is now a freelance screenwriter director and MD of his own production company, and balances his professional career between his cinema development slate and directing Network television drama, to include Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law (TV series)
Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four...
, C4 feature length comedy Wedding Belles
Wedding Belles
Wedding Belles is a Scottish-based British television drama first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2007.-Plot:Wedding Belles centres around four young women struggling with personal issues, while preparing to throw one of their group the wedding of the year...
written by Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...
and Dean Cavanagh
Dean Cavanagh
Dean Cavanagh is an award-winning artist, screenwriter, film and TV producer and music producer born in Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1966...
and primetime series like the BBC's Ashes To Ashes.
He has also worked with Dean and Irvine on "Dose", a half hour comedy for BBC Wales
BBC Wales
BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation for Wales. Based at Broadcasting House in the Llandaff area of Cardiff, it directly employs over 1200 people, and produces a broad range of television, radio and online services in both the Welsh and English languages.Outside...
starring Julia Davies.
Other comedy collaborations include Chris Langham
Chris Langham
Christopher "Chris" Langham is an English writer, actor and comedian. He is most famous for playing MP Hugh Abbot in BBC Four sitcom The Thick of It and as presenter Roy Mallard in People Like Us, first on BBC Radio 4 and later on its transfer to television on BBC Two, where Mallard is almost...
's TV pilot "Seven Second Delay", and half hour spinechiller "Bradford In My Dreams", both written by and starring Chris Langham.
In 2009, Philip, with long time friends and collaborators actor Jonathan Owen and writer Dean Cavanagh, started indie production company Burn After Listening. The company's first project SVENGALI
Svengali
Svengali is a fictional character of George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby. Svengali "would either fawn or bully and could be grossly impertinent. He had a kind of cynical humour that was more offensive than amusing and always laughed at the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place...
, a satire on the Music Biz and released as a series of web virals, and (also available as free downloads from iTunes) stars Jonathan Owen
Jonathan Owen
Jonathan Owen is a film and theatre actor.-Career:He has been a member of Equity, the British trade union for actors/actresses, since 1978.Owen appeared as Broter Timoteo in the comedy-drama film The Mandrake Root ....
, Roger Evans, Alan Mcgee
Alan McGee
Alan McGee has been a record label owner, musician, manager, and music blogger for The Guardian.McGee is best-known for co-forming and running the independent Creation Records label from 1983–1999, and then Poptones from 1999-2007...
, Sean Harris
Sean Harris
Sean Harris is a British actor, who is best known for his performance as Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in the film 24 Hour Party People. He grew up in Norwich, Norfolk, where he lived until he was 23....
and Sally Phillips
Sally Phillips
-Career:Sally Phillips was the only woman in the 1990 Oxford Revue THRASH which also starred Ed Smith. She did nine consecutive Edinburgh Festivals, appearing in shows such as Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Arthur Smith's version of Hamlet and Cluub Zarathustra with Simon Munnery, Stewart Lee, Richard Thomas,...
, as well as real life rock legends Carl Barat
Carl Barât
Carl Ashley Raphael Barât is an English musician, actor and author. He was the frontman and lead guitarist of Dirty Pretty Things, and recently debuted a solo album, but is best known for being the co-frontman with Peter Doherty of the garage rock band The Libertines.-Early life:Carl Barât was...
, Maggot
Maggot
In everyday speech the word maggot means the larva of a fly ; it is applied in particular to the larvae of Brachyceran flies, such as houseflies, cheese flies, and blowflies, rather than larvae of the Nematocera, such as mosquitoes and Crane flies...
and Bonehead
Bonehead
Bonehead can refer to:* an idiot* Bonehead, a derogatory term in the skinhead and punk subcultures, referring to white power skinheads.* Bonehead, a derogatory term in the United Kingdom, used by traditional skinheads to describe punk rock-influenced skinheads* Bonehead, a derogatory term in South...
. SVENGALI is soon to become a television series with production company Burn After Listening Ltd producing.