Richard III | Directed by Richard Loncraine
Richard Loncraine (Director & Screenwriter) won a BAFTA Award as Best Director for the television drama Blade On The Feather, written by Dennis Potter. His film for television, Wide-Eyed and Legless, starring Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent, was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Drama and was released theatrically in the United States by Miramax as The Wedding Gift.
Loncraine's feature credits also include: Full Circle, with Mia Farrow and Tom Conti; Brimstone and Treacle, starring Sting; The Missionary , written by and starring Michael Palin; and Bellman and True. He made his feature film directorial debut on Flame, starring Tom Conti and produced by David Puttnam.
Loncraine originally wanted to be an actor. He was accepted to study theatre design at the Bristol Old Vic, but being too young, he spent a year studying sculpture at the Central School of Art and became interested in designing toys. A few years later, he turned his interest into a profitable and enduring business, seeing the commercial potential in Newton's Cradle, which he marketed as an executive toy.
Instead of returning to theatre design, he spent three years at the film school at the Royal College of Art and continued to exhibit his kinetic sculpture, with two one-man shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
In his first year at the RCA, Loncraine made a successful pitch to Yorkshire Television, enabling him to direct The Most Beautiful Hotel in the World, a documentary about a 1930s hotel in Le Touquet, France. After graduating, he joined the BBC's flagship science programme Tomorrow's World, directing 75 ten-minute episodes in two years.
Loncraine left the BBC when director John Schlesinger asked him to design the toys for Sunday, Bloody Sunday, in which Murray Head plays a toy designer. Through Schlesinger he met Jim Garrett, whose TV commercial company was the most established in the country. Loncraine went on to direct over 420 commercials, winning numerous awards.
Loncraine also directed the British telefilms Oy Vay Maria, The Vanishing Army and Secret Orchards.