Julian Birkett

Julian Birkett has over the years been a writer, documentary film maker and teacher. He has written TV scripts, a guide to creative writing and several teaching resource books as well as articles for the New Statesman and BBC History. He has taught English in inner London schools and at the University of Mumbai.

For thirty years Julian worked for BBC television as a producer and director on such series as the Late Show, Omnibus and the Culture Show. He has also made documentaries about such diverse subjects as John Ruskin, David Bowie, Leonardo, William Blake and the newly reformed Blondie. He was the series producer of How We Built Britain, The Victorians, Empire and Britain’s Great War. His book Word Power: a guide to creative writing is published by Bloomsbury.

In 2003 he script-edited Charlotte Eilenberg’s first play The Lucky Ones at the Hampstead Theatre which went on to win an Olivier award. He directed her second, Shrunk.

Since leaving the BBC Julian Birkett has taken up teaching again at London’s City Lit and the Mary Ward centre, offering courses to adults on the nineteenth-century novel, Russian literature, the World’s Great Short Stories and American Gothic.

Now working on a novel based on his two years in Mumbai, Julian Birkett is training to be a magistrate. He lives in London with his wife Charlotte Eilenberg (see above) and likes guitar picking and a good box set.