CHRISTOPHER LLOYD KING

I was brought up in Newcastle-on-Tyne and educated at the Royal  Grammar School, before going on to St. Peter's College Oxford, where I read Modern Languages. Subsequently, I was part of the first intake of the National Film and Television School and on graduation was commissioned by the BBC to remake one of my student films.

 

Over thirty-five years I directed single films and TV series. Highlights  include BBC's 'Forgive our Foolish Ways', for which Kate Nelligan received a BAFTA nomination as best actress, ITV's 'The Thing About Vince' starring Timothy Spall (awarded a Silver Rose at the Montreux TV festival), Channel 4's 'The Manageress', and the FIFA World Cup Film of Italia '90.

I also directed episodes of popular shows, including 'The Professionals', 'Minder', 'Soldier, Soldier', 'The Bill', 'Casualty', 'Holby City'.

 

More recently, I've turned to writing fiction.

I've always been interested in the ways political events on the global scale affect the everyday life of ordinary people, and this preoccupation led me to the story of 'Black Sun'. I was struck by the similarities between those events and the Blair/Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003. There was the same slender pretext for declaring war, the same demonisation of a tyrant and the same outcome: huge loss of life and the creation of a power vacuum leading to devastating civil war.

 

'The Apprentice Gigolo' was inspired by the direct experience of living in Aix-en-Provence during the student riots of May 1968. I got to know a man who made a living as an escort of wealthy women on the Côte d'Azur. He undertook, unsuccessfully, to teach me the dark art of seduction. The novel loosely draws on my memories of that time.

 

'Blue Norther' is a fictionalised acount of the life of Quanah Parker, a seminal figure in the history of the American Far West. A chance encounter with one of his descendants, an active representative of the Comanche nation, gave me licence to research and tell this story.

 

                : https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0454590/?ref_=fn_al_nm_2