Joe Ahearne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joe Ahearne (born 23 November 1963) is a British television writer and director, best known for his work on several fantasy-based 'cult' programmes including Ultraviolet and Doctor Who.
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[edit] Career
Ahearne's career began when the short film Latin for a Dark Room won an award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1994, and shortly afterwards he began working for the independent television production company World Productions. Among his work for World were episodes of the 1997 series of World's acclaimed BBC Two drama This Life, which followed the lives of a group of law students in London. Ahearne wrote two and directed another three episodes, making him the only person to both write and direct episodes for the multiple-award-winning series.
His next major production for World was for the Channel 4 network, a six-episode vampire serial entitled Ultraviolet, which Ahearne both wrote and directed. Again highly acclaimed, Ultraviolet was broadcast in 1998, and has subsequently been released on both VHS and DVD. The series also ran on the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States, and the Fox Network in that country produced a pilot for their own version in 2001, although this was not a success and did not lead to a series.
In 2002 Ahearne directed the pilot for a Big Bear Productions horror / fantasy drama entitled Strange, written by Andrew Marshall and broadcast on BBC One. The pilot was successful enough for a series to be commissioned the following year, with Ahearne helming three of the six episodes, although the series was not a success and a second did not follow.
He both wrote and directed the two-part drama / documentary series Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets for the BBC and the Discovery Channel in 2004. He was the director of five episodes of the BBC's Doctor Who, a programme which had it’s first episode was broadcast on the day Ahearne was born. His episodes were broadcast in early 2005 as part of the first series of the revived programme, created by Russell T Davies. Ahearne was nominated for his first BAFTA for his work on Doctor Who.
In 2006 his drama Perfect Parents, starring erstwhile Doctor Who lead Christopher Eccleston, was aired on ITV1 in December.[1] The following month, Ahearne returned to This Life to direct the one-off reunion episode "This Life +10", shown on BBC Two on January 2, 2007.
[edit] Current projects
Ahearne's latest project is Apparitions, a new supernatural series for the BBC which he has again written and directed. It is currently in post production and is expected to air on BBC1 in early 2008.
