Chris Parr (born 1943) is a British theatre director and television drama producer and executive.

Career

Chris Parr grew up in Littlehampton, Sussex.He was educated at Chichester High School for Boys, where his contemporaries included Howard Brenton, David Wood and the late David Horlock, and Queen's College, Oxford, to which he won an Open Scholarship to read Classics. However, he left Oxford without a degree but with the intention of making a career in the theatre. From 1969 to 1972, Parr was the first Fellow in Theatre at the University of Bradford. During this period he worked closely with Bradford University Drama Group, directing or producing new plays by writers, notably Howard Brenton, David Edgar and Richard Crane, who were already getting, or were about to get, attention on a national level. From 1975 to 1981 he was Artistic Director of the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco. The Traverse Theatre company commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary p ...

, where he ran the Royal Court Theatre's Sunday Night Programme and developed and regularly directed plays by new and emerging Scottish playwrights. Writers such as John Byrne and Tom McGrath emerged in this time. In 1994, he was appointed head of drama at BBC Birmingham, and in the same year he produced the serial '' Takin' Over the Asylum'', which won a

BAFTA award The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cer ...

. In 1995 he moved to the BBC's central drama department in London to become Head of Drama Series. By 2002, he had moved to

Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broa ...

as head of drama.

Credits

as Director

*''Revenge'' by

Howard Brenton Howard John Brenton FRSL (born 13 December 1942) is an English playwright and screenwriter. While little-known in the United States, he is celebrated in his home country and often ranked alongside contemporaries such as Edward Bond, Caryl Chu ...

(

Royal Court Theatre Upstairs The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...

, 1969) *''Gum and Goo'' by Howard Brenton, Bradford University Theatre Group, 1969–70 *''Heads'' by Howard Brenton, University of Bradford Drama Group, 1969 *''The Education of Skinny Spew'' by Howard Brenton, University of Bradford Drama Group, 1969 *''Triple Bill: Laughs etc, History of a Poor Old Man and The Old Jew'' (Soho Theatre, 1970) *''Two Kinds of Angels'' (Bradford, 1970) *''Inquisition'' (Soho Theatre, 1971) *''A Fart for Europe'' (Theatre Upstairs, 1973) *''True-Life'' (Soho Theatre, 1973) *''New Reekie'' (Traverse Theatre, 1977) *''A&R'' (Traverse Theatre, 1977) *''Rents'' (Traverse Theatre, 1979) *''The Case of David Anderson QC'' (Traverse Theatre, 1980) *''The Long March'' (BBC Television, 1983) *''The Rainbow'' (BBC Television) *''Heartlanders'' (Birmingham Community Theatre, 1989) *''Kings of the Road'' (Edinburgh Festival, Ambassadors Dublin, Winchester Theatre Royal, Greenwich Theatre, 2003) *''The Musical'' (Edinburgh Festival, 2004)

as Producer

*'' Children of the North'' (BBC Northern Ireland, 1991) *'' You, Me & Marley'' (BBC, 1992) *''

Martin Chuzzlewit ''The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit'' (commonly known as ''Martin Chuzzlewit'') is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialised between 1842 and 1844. While he was writing it ...

'' (BBC, 1994) *'' Takin' Over the Asylum'' (BBC Scotland, 1994)

as Executive Producer

*''

Preston Front II Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

'' (BBC, 1995) *''

The Bill ''The Bill'' is a British police procedural television series, first broadcast on ITV from 16 August 1983 until 31 August 2010. The programme originated from a one-off drama, '' Woodentop'', broadcast in August 1983. The programme focused o ...

'' (Thames, 2002)

as Commissioning Editor

*'' Dangerfield'' (BBC) *''

Preston Front ''All Quiet on the Preston Front'' is a BBC comedy drama about a group of friends in the fictional Lancashire town of Roker Bridge, and their links to the local Territorial Army infantry platoon. It was created by Tim Firth. Episodes Three ser ...

'' (BBC) *''

Backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", ...

'' (BBC) *'' Dalziel and Pascoe'' (BBC) *''

Cruel Train ''Cruel Train'' (also known as ''The Beast in Man'') is a British television crime drama, written and directed by Malcolm McKay, and first broadcast on BBC2 on 22 December 1996. Based on Émile Zola's 1890 novel ''La Bête humaine'', and set du ...

'' (BBC)

References

Sources

'New Challenge at BBC' ''Bradford University News and Views'', November 1995
Retrieved 3 December 2005. 1944 births Living people British theatre directors British television producers British television executives Academics of the University of Bradford {{UK-tv-bio-stub