Andrew Davies


Andrew Wynford Davies (born September 20, 1936 in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, Wales) is a British screenwriter. He is the creator of the television series Educating Marmalade and A Very Peculiar Practice, and is also well known for his adaptations of classic works of literature, including the famous television version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

The popularity of his adaptation of Michael Dobbs’s political thriller House of Cards was a significant influence in Dobbs’s decision to write two sequels (which he also adapted for television).

In film, his most successful work has been collaborating on the screenplays for both of the Bridget Jones films, based on Helen Fielding’s successful novels.

For many years Davies was a lecturer at the University of Warwick, an experience he drew upon in writing the campus based comedy series A Very Peculiar Practice.

He is also a prolific writer for children. His works in this field include the Guardian Award-winning Conrad’s War; Alfonso Bonzo (book and television series); and the adventures of Marmalade Atkins (television series and numerous books).

Television series and serials

  • To Serve Them All My Days (1980)
  • Dark Towers (Look And Read: 1981)
  • Diana (1984)
  • Badger Girl (Look And Read: 1984)
  • A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–88)
  • Mother Love (1989)
  • House of Cards (1990)
  • Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1992)
  • The Old Devils (1992)
  • To Play the King (1993)
  • Middlemarch (1994)
  • Game On (1995, with Bernadette Davis)
  • Pride and Prejudice (1995)
  • The Final Cut (1995)
  • Wilderness (1996)
  • Moll Flanders (1992)
  • Bill’s New Frock (1997)
  • Vanity Fair (1998)
  • Wives and Daughters (1999)
  • Take A Girl Like You (2000)
  • The Way We Live Now (2001)
  • Tipping the Velvet (2002)
  • He Knew He Was Right (2004)
  • alling (2005)
  • Bleak House (2005)
  • The Line of Beauty (2006)
  • Northanger Abbey (2007), part of the Jane Austen Season
  • A Room with a View (2007)

Television plays

  • Who’s Going to Take Me On? (1967)
  • Is That Your Bod, Boy? (1970)
  • No Good Unless It Hurts (1973)
  • The Water Maiden (1974)
  • Grace (1975)
  • The Imp of the Perverse (1975)
  • The Signalman (1976)
  • A Martyr to the System (1976)
  • Eleanor Marx (1977)
  • Happy in War (1977)
  • Velvet Glove (1977)
  • Fearless Frank (1978)
  • Renoir My Father (1978)
  • Bavarian Night (1981)
  • Heartattack Hotel (1983)
  • Baby I Love You (1985)
  • Pythons on the Mountain (1985)
  • Inappropriate Behaviour (1987)
  • Lucky Sunil (1988)
  • Filipina Dreamgirls (1991)
  • A Very Polish Practice (1992)
  • Anna Lee (1993)
  • Harnessing Peacocks (1993)
  • A Few Short Journeys of the Heart (1994)
  • Emma (1996)
  • Getting Hurt (1998)
  • A Rather English Marriage (1998)
  • Othello (2001)
  • Boudicea (2003)
  • The Chatterley Affair (2006)

Cinema

  • Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001, with Helen Fielding and Richard Curtis)
  • Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004, with Helen Fielding)
  • Brideshead Revisited (2008)

Novels

  • Based on the TV series of the same title:
  • A Very Peculiar Practice (1986, Coronet)
  • A Very Peculiar Practice: The New Frontier (1988, Methuen)

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