Jonathan Ripley

Jonathan Ripley is an English director, producer, and writer of stage and screen.

Career

Ripley's media work started in 1981 documenting the closure of the old Billingsgate Fish Market. He then worked as a researcher, firstly on Channel 4 television 's multi-cultural documentary series Rhythms ; for London Weekend Television and Central Independent Television shows; then as assistant director on Channel 4's soap opera Brookside and drama feature film A Kind of English.
He was associate producer on Fonteyn and Nureyev, Channel 4's 1985 Christmas Day special, nominated for the International Emmy Award; on Tyne Tees Television's 1988 feature documentary Thunder Road; and Yorkshire Television First Tuesdays 1987 documentary film featuring surfing in south Wales.

1989 – Spirit, feature film starring Paul Rhys; BBC2 Friday Night Movie premiere 1996. Press: The Guardian – "Eerie, out of the ordinary"; TVTimes – "Successful mix of action, adventure and supernatural, compulsively watchable"
1992 – Burning Ash, short theatrical feature film starring Charlie Drake; nominated for the Madrid Film Festival's audience best picture. Press: The Observer "Wholly cinematic eco occult movie; Today "Oddly disturbing". 1993 microfilm Bosnia for UNHCR, global theatrical and television distribution; nominated for Best UK Advertising Award
1992 – founder and director of Medicine Hat Charity, medicines for Bosnia and Croatia
1998 – stage play Last Train To Maraskaya at the London Pleasance Theatre and Horsham Studio Theatre. Reading comments: Soho Theatre – "Beautifully executed, highly entertaining, Becket/Orton theatre of the absurd"; Liverpool Playhouse – "Brilliant, wonderful writing, combined real life with fantasy"; Michael Hastings – "Expressionistic mix of comedy and surrealism akin to Capek Brothers"
1999 – Film Critics deem Jonathan Ripley as "The worst director I think I might have ever seen". Less harsh critics have said that "Jonathan Ripley is the epitome of mediocrity"