
Writing
William Andrew Murray Boyd CBE FRSL (born 7 March 1952) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Boyd was born in Accra, Gold Coast, (present-day Ghana), to Scottish parents, both from Fife, and has two younger sisters. His father Alexander, a doctor specialising in tropical medicine, and Boyd's mother, who was a teacher, moved to the Gold Coast in 1950 to run the health clinic at the University College of the Gold Coast, Legon (now the University of Ghana). In the early 1960s the family moved to western Nigeria, where Boyd's father held a similar position at the University of Ibadan. Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria and, at the age of nine, went to a preparatory school and then to Gordonstoun school in Scotland, and, after that, to the University of Nice in France, followed by the University of Glasgow, where he gained an M.A. (Hons) in English & Philosophy, and finally Jesus College, Oxford. His father died of a rare disease when Boyd was 26. Between 1980 and 1983 Boyd was a lecturer in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and it was while he was there that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published. He was also television critic for the New Statesman between 1981 and 1983. Boyd was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for services to literature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary Doctorates in Literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling, Glasgow, and Dundee and is an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. Boyd is a member of the Chelsea Arts Club. Boyd met his wife Susan, a former editor and now a screenwriter, while they were both at Glasgow University. He has a house in Chelsea, London and a farmhouse and vineyard (with its own appellation Château Pecachard) in Bergerac in the Dordogne in south-west France. In August 2014 Boyd was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. ... Source: Article "William Boyd (writer)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Produced by Channel 4, Still Tickin´: The Return of A Clockwork Orange examines the controversy over Kubrick’s iconic film, explaining the film’s “demonic level of attention,” and its influence on culture, politics and society, which led to the director’s self-imposed ban.

Hockney talks about his 40 year love affair with photography.

Novelist William Boyd looks back on his long friendship with fellow writer Martin Amis, who died in May 2023 at the age of 73. Boyd's focus is on what many consider to be Martin's most successful work, 1984's Money, which introduced readers to the hedonistic would-be film-maker John Self. The character would be portrayed by actor Nick Frost in the BBC's dramatization of the novel in 2010, and here Boyd also discusses the challenges of screen adaptation generally, and why bringing Amis's work to the small screen was always going to be particularly challenging.
The Rabbit is the world's belling-selling vibrator. In the past year alone, millions have been sold all over the globe. Now experts are warning the Rabbit is becoming the new addiction; women who start using often find they simply cannot stop. RABBIT FEVER is the first film to follow the trials and tribulations of a group of Rabbit Addicts as they attempt to kick their Rabbit habit.

An epic about anthropologists who hunt and capture pygmies for study back in Europe, in an attempt to illustrate the link between man and ape.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

Martin works at the local radio station, which just hired a new scriptwriter with a reputation for great drama, Pedro Carmichael. Martin’s aunt Julia, not related by blood, returns home after many years away and Martin falls for her. Once Pedro finds out about this romance, he starts incorporating details of it into the script of his daily drama series. Soon, Martin and Julia are not only hearing about their fictional selves over the radio, but about what they are going to do next.

The Trench tells the story of a group of young British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916, the worst defeat in British military history. Against this ill-fated backdrop, the movie depicts the soldiers' experience as a mixture of boredom, fear, panic, and restlessness, confined to a trench on the front lines.

Morgan Leafy is a secretary to the British High Commissioner to an Africa nation. Leafy is a man that makes himself useful to his boss, the snobbish Arthur Fanshawe, who has no clue about what's going on around him, but who wants to use his secretary to carry on his dirty work, which involves getting one of the most powerful men in the country to do business with his country.The young secretary has an eye for beautiful women around him, especially Hazel, a native beauty, with whom he is having an affair. Things get complicated because Sam Adekunle, a man running for president of the country, wants a favor from Leafy in return after he has accepted the invitation to visit London. The proposition involves swaying a prominent doctor's opposition to a plan that will make Adenkule filthy rich.

In this sophomoric comedy, a lusty adolescent British hockey team heads for Holland where they find something far more interesting than tulips and windmills: gorgeous, lusty women. They are so busy pursuing romance that they forget all about their upcoming match.

Guy Crouchback joins the war effort during World War 2, an idealistic quest to join the forces of good in the fight against evil. But his efforts is not rewarded, he never has any chance to join any real fighting, circumstances always prevent it. Instead he finds himself in the middle of an army full of cowards, incompetents and a few outright evil men. They of course reap the fortunes of war, promotions and fame, but never Crouchback. His war is just an endless list of transfers and an hopeless but noble quest for righteousness.

In 1923 British Colonial Nigeria, Mister Johnson is an oddity -- an educated black man who doesn't really fit in with the natives or the British. He works for the local British magistrate, and considers himself English, though he has never been to England. He is always scheming, trying to get ahead, which lands him in a lot of hot water.

A young boy is taken from his boarding school by a secretive stranger known simply as "the Captain".

In 1609, William Shakespeare published a collection of 154 sonnets, creating what is arguably the greatest lyric sequence in English literature - and at the center of this masterpiece lies a mystery that has endured for centuries. What are the identities of “the young man” and “the dark lady” to whom all but two of the sonnets allude? This moving performance brings to life the gritty reality of Shakespeare’s England, bits of the Bard’s plays and poems, and the consummate poet and dramatist himself as it exposes these personages unseen but so keenly felt in Shakespeare’s sonnets and in his life. Rupert Graves, Tom Sturridge, Indira Varma, Anna Chancellor, and Zoë Wanamaker star. Contains mature themes and explicit language. Some content may be objectionable. Produced by the Open University.
