Recent from talks
Ian La Frenais
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Ian La Frenais
Ian La Frenais (born 7 January 1937) 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 and its sequel Going Straight, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
La Frenais was born in Monkseaton, Northumberland; his father was an accountant. As a child at Park Primary School in Whitley Bay, La Frenais enjoyed art and writing. He then attended Dame Allan's Boys School in Newcastle upon Tyne, and completed his National Service in the British Army. After working as a salesman for a tobacco company, he began composing songs for a weekly satirical programme on Tyne Tees Television and then moved to London where he worked for a market research company.
Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement have enjoyed a long and successful career embracing films, television and theatre. Their partnership began in the mid-1960s with the hit television show The Likely Lads, and by the end of the decade they had also written three feature films: The Jokers, Otley (directed by Clement) and Hannibal Brooks.
In the early 1970s, they worked on two other features: Villain, starring Richard Burton, and Catch Me a Spy (again directed by Clement), starring Kirk Douglas. In this same period, they created their award-winning TV series Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?; this was followed by Porridge, Thick as Thieves and Going Straight. There were big-screen versions of both The Likely Lads and Porridge, and a 'rockumentary', To Russia With Elton, in 1979.
Earlier that decade they had adapted Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar into the stage musical Billy, starring Michael Crawford, which ran at London's Drury Lane Theatre for two-and-a-half years.
By the late 1970s, they were living in California, where they wrote On the Rocks, an American version of Porridge, and The Prisoner of Zenda, a feature film starring Peter Sellers.
In the 1980s, their work included most of the TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which was voted ITV's Favourite TV Programme of all Time in a Radio Times readers' poll to celebrate the network's 60th anniversary, and uncredited writing work on the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. La Frenais produced the films Bullshot (1983) and Water (1985), both directed by Clement; they also substantially wrote the latter. In 1987, they wrote and produced Vice Versa.
In the US, he and Clement were writers and supervising producers on HBO's Emmy-winning show Tracey Takes On... for four years in the 1990s. Their films around this time include The Commitments, which won both the Evening Standard's Peter Sellers Award for Comedy and a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Excess Baggage and Still Crazy. In addition, they did uncredited rewrites on The Rock (starring Sean Connery) for Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay.
Hub AI
Ian La Frenais AI simulator
(@Ian La Frenais_simulator)
Ian La Frenais
Ian La Frenais (born 7 January 1937) 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 and its sequel Going Straight, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
La Frenais was born in Monkseaton, Northumberland; his father was an accountant. As a child at Park Primary School in Whitley Bay, La Frenais enjoyed art and writing. He then attended Dame Allan's Boys School in Newcastle upon Tyne, and completed his National Service in the British Army. After working as a salesman for a tobacco company, he began composing songs for a weekly satirical programme on Tyne Tees Television and then moved to London where he worked for a market research company.
Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement have enjoyed a long and successful career embracing films, television and theatre. Their partnership began in the mid-1960s with the hit television show The Likely Lads, and by the end of the decade they had also written three feature films: The Jokers, Otley (directed by Clement) and Hannibal Brooks.
In the early 1970s, they worked on two other features: Villain, starring Richard Burton, and Catch Me a Spy (again directed by Clement), starring Kirk Douglas. In this same period, they created their award-winning TV series Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?; this was followed by Porridge, Thick as Thieves and Going Straight. There were big-screen versions of both The Likely Lads and Porridge, and a 'rockumentary', To Russia With Elton, in 1979.
Earlier that decade they had adapted Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar into the stage musical Billy, starring Michael Crawford, which ran at London's Drury Lane Theatre for two-and-a-half years.
By the late 1970s, they were living in California, where they wrote On the Rocks, an American version of Porridge, and The Prisoner of Zenda, a feature film starring Peter Sellers.
In the 1980s, their work included most of the TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which was voted ITV's Favourite TV Programme of all Time in a Radio Times readers' poll to celebrate the network's 60th anniversary, and uncredited writing work on the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. La Frenais produced the films Bullshot (1983) and Water (1985), both directed by Clement; they also substantially wrote the latter. In 1987, they wrote and produced Vice Versa.
In the US, he and Clement were writers and supervising producers on HBO's Emmy-winning show Tracey Takes On... for four years in the 1990s. Their films around this time include The Commitments, which won both the Evening Standard's Peter Sellers Award for Comedy and a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Excess Baggage and Still Crazy. In addition, they did uncredited rewrites on The Rock (starring Sean Connery) for Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay.