Ian La Frenais

Early life

La Frenais was born in Monkseaton, Northumberland; his father was an accountant. As a child at Park Primary School in Whitley Bay, La Frenais enjoyed art and writing. He then attended Dame Allan's Boys School in Newcastle upon Tyne, and completed his National Service in the British Army. After working as a salesman for a tobacco company, he began composing songs for a weekly satirical programme on Tyne Tees Television and then moved to London where he worked for a market research company.

Writing partnership with Dick Clement

Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement have enjoyed a long and successful career embracing films, television and theatre. Their partnership began in the mid-1960s with the hit television show The Likely Lads, and by the end of the decade they had also written three feature films: The Jokers, Otley (directed by Clement) and Hannibal Brooks.

In the early seventies they worked on two other features—Villain, starring Richard Burton, and Catch Me a Spy (again directed by Clement), starring Kirk Douglas. In this same period they created their award-winning TV series Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?; this was followed by Porridge, Thick as Thieves and Going Straight. There were big-screen versions of both The Likely Lads and Porridge, and a 'rockumentary', To Russia With Elton, in 1979.

Earlier that decade they had adapted Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar into the stage musical Billy, starring Michael Crawford, which ran at London's Drury Lane Theatre for two-and-a-half years.

By the late 1970s they were living in California, where they wrote On the Rocks, an American version of Porridge, and The Prisoner of Zenda, a feature film starring Peter Sellers.

In the eighties, their work included most of the TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, voted best drama series of the decade, and uncredited writing work on Never Say Never Again. La Frenais produced the films Bullshot (1983) and Water (1985), both directed by Clement; they also substantially wrote the latter. In 1987, they wrote and produced Vice Versa.

In the US, he and Clement were writers and supervising producers on HBO's Emmy-winning show Tracey Takes On... for four years in the 1990s. Their films around this time include The Commitments, which won both the Evening Standard's Peter Sellers Award for Comedy and a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Excess Baggage and Still Crazy. In addition, they did uncredited rewrites on The Rock (starring Sean Connery) for Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay.

Their recent television includes Archangel (starring Daniel Craig) and The Rotters' Club, which they adapted from best-sellers by Robert Harris and Jonathan Coe respectively. Their most recent film credits include Goal! The Dream Begins, the animated film Flushed Away, Across the Universe and The Bank Job.

They have written the books for two stage musicals in development, Juke Box Hero and Victoria’s Secret. Two new television series will air in 2017: a new version of Porridge, starring Kevin Bishop, for the BBC; and Henry IX for UKTV, starring Charles Edwards.

Other credits

In addition to his long-running collaborations with Clement, La Frenais has created, co-created, written and/or contributed to many other TV series, including The Two Ronnies, several episodes of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse, The Other 'Arf (1980–81), the long-running series Lovejoy and the hit 1990s BBC detective series Spender (co-written with actor/singer Jimmy Nail).

Since 1984, he has been married to artist Doris Vartan, the mother of actor Michael Vartan. Like Clement, he was made an OBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list.

Writing credits (with Dick Clement)