ANTHONY McCARTEN
Writer/Director

Anthony is a celebrated film maker, novelist and playwright, who divides his time between New Zealand and London.

His first novel, Spinners, (Picador) has been translated into six languages, and was voted one of the top ten novels of 2000 by readers of Esquire magazine. Film rights have been sold to producer David Parfitt (Shakespeare In Love). Anthony has since written the screenplay and is in talks to direct the film on location in New Zealand this year, starring Sam Neill and Kelly MacDonald.

He has also adapted his second novel, The English Harem (Picador), as a feature film for ITV, which drew 7 million viewers in the UK when it aired on Boxing Day, 2005. It starred Art Malik and Martine McCutcheon. The novel has gone on to be a small-publishers bestseller in the UK in 2006. Foreign book rights have just sold to Greece and Germany. Novelist Timothy Mo named this book his Novel Of The Year.

Anthony received early international success with his play Ladies Night. Translated into twelve languages it remains New Zealands most commercially successful play of all time, and in addition to eight national tours of Britain alone it continues play worldwide. In 2001 it won Frances premiere theatre award for comedy, the Moliere Prize. He has written eleven other widely produced plays and his new novel Death Of A Superhero, has just been published in Britain. Foreign rights have been sold to Germany. His adaptation of this novel won acceptance at the prestigious eQuinoxe script lab in Paris in 2005, and script development has been financed by the New Zealand Film Commission.

Anthony is also a film director whose first feature film, Via Satellite, which he adapted from his own award-winning stageplay, was invited to several film festivals including London, Cannes, Toronto, Melbourne, Hawaii and Seattle. His latest feature project as writer/director is Endurance (2006) which is in pre-production in New Zealand.

Unique among novelists, Anthonys passion is to adapt his own novels into screenplays and then complete the trifecta, by directing these films himself.

He currently resides in the Cotswolds with his English partner and their two children.

PLAYS

Cyrill Ellis Where Are You? (Invitation To A Second Class Carriage) Depot 1984

Pigeon English The Depot 1986

Yellow Canary Mazurka Circa 1988

Ladies Night (with Stephen Sinclair) Mercury 1987

Weed Circa 1990

Via Satellite Circa 1991

Legless (with Stephen Sinclair) Court 1991

Let's Spend The Night Together Bats 1992

Hang On A Minute Mate Downstage 1993

Ladies Night II Raging On (with Stephen Sinclair) Court 1993

F.I.L.T.H - Failed In London Try Hong Kong Circa 1995

Four Cities Los Angeles 1996


FILM & TELEVISION SCRIPTS

Worzel Gummidge Down Under Channel 4, UK, (4 eps) 1987

Pumpernickle TVNZ 1989

Rodney & Juliet prod Jane Gilbert 1990

Nocturne In A Room Wellington & Auckland Film Festivals 1992

Fluff Yilditz Film 1996

Via Satellite with Greg McGee, 1997

Spinners adapted from Anthony´s novel 1999

The English Harem (feature, in production) 2003

Death of a Superhero (feature, in devt.) 2003

Theory of Everything (feature, in devt.) 2004

Bobby and Boris (feature, in devt.) 2005

Endurance (feature, in pre-production) 2006


PUBLISHED

A Modest Apocalypse, & Other Stories Godwit Press NZ, 1991 (Shortlisted for Heinemann Reid Fiction Award 1991. Judge: Angela Carter)

Two Stories: Vital Writings. Ed. Andrew Mason, Godwit Press, NZ, 1991

Three Stories: appearing in Introductions - First Fictions Faber & Faber, London, 1992

Spinners . A novel.
Picador, UK ? April 1999
Random House, NZ
William Morrow, US (hardback) ? March 1999
Harper Perennial, US (paper) - 2001
Garzanti, Italy, 2001
Via Verbis, Germany, 2001
Kinneret, Israel, 2002
De Kern, Baarn, Holland, 2001

The English Harem. A novel.
Random House, NZ, 2002
Picador, UK, March 2001
Olympia, Greece, 2003

Brilliance. A novel.
Random House, NZ, 2003

Death of a Superhero. A novel.
Random House, NZ, 2005
Alma Books, UK, 2005
Diogenes, Germany, 2005


AWARDS & PRIZES

1991 - Wellington Theatre Critics Award for Best ProductionVia Satellite.

1991 - The Listener Best Playwright for Via Satellite.

Runner Up Heinemann-Reed Fiction Awards 1991 for A Modest Apocalypse

Frances Moli?re prize, the Meilleure Pi?ce Comique, 2001, for Ladies Night.