Brian has several projects in development. He is currently script-writing with Toby Whithouse on a detective series with a familiar flavour, based on an 80s old school classic. He is also developing a drama series tackling climate change with Blacklight TV, and ‘You Canceled Me’ – a four part thriller serial set in the world of social media moderators.
Brian worked as part of the writers room on Trust, Simon Beaufoy’s FX series about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, which broadcast on BBC-2 in 2018. Brian also co-wrote two episodes.
In 2017 Brian was BAFTA nominated for Against the Law, a single drama documentary for BBC 2, which focused on the arrest and imprisonment of the gay journalist Peter Wildeblood in 1954. Danny Mays starred as Wildeblood; the film was broadcast as part of the channel’s season commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act – which legalised sex between consenting adults of the same sex:
“Writer Brian Fillis creates a world of constant low-level threat with an economy that allows you to feel it for yourself rather than be constantly reminded of it by the dialogue… Work like this doesn’t come along every day. Against the Law stands as a brilliant, important, must-see piece of television.” (The Guardian)
Brian also contributed to Mark Gattis’s ‘Queers’ a series of a short monologue films shown on BBC 4 in 2017 – with ‘More Anger’, starring Russell Tovey.
In 2015 Brian worked in the writers room for Tatau, a supernatural mini-series for BBC 3. He also wrote episode five.
He created and wrote three episodes of Sirens, which aired on Channel 4 in the summer of 2011. The American series based on Sirens ran for two seasons on the USA Network in 2014 and 2015.
In 2010, Excluded, a single drama for BBC-2, was seen by 1.4 million viewers as part of the channel’s School Season:
“Excluded moved and illuminated and had lines that seemed to come from a teacher’s desk, not that of a television dramatist. “They’re little bastards,” said an old hand at one point about Ian’s class. “But they’re target little bastards, that’s the problem.” You wouldn’t hear that in Waterloo Road.” (The Independent)
In February 2009, An Englishman in New York had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival followed by a broadcast on ITV1. The drama told the story of Quentin Crisp’s latter years in New York and starred John Hurt – thirty four years after he first portrayed Crisp on screen. Co-stars included Dennis O’Hare, Jonathan Tucker and Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon.
Brian’s previous work on TV includes The Curse of Steptoe, a single drama for BBC-4 which aired in March 2008. The drama remains one of BBC-4’s most watched programmes and won the RTS Award for Best Single Drama:
“I was worried beforehand that the notoriously tense antipathy between Corbett and Brambell would be exposed as melodrama, with the usual “tears of a clown” schtick. But this was a surprisingly restrained drama which treated its troubled subjects with empathy and respect.” (The Scotsman).
Brian’s TV debut was his adaptation of his cult comic play Fear of Fanny for BBC-4 starring Julia Davis and Mark Gatiss. The 90min television film about the life and supper times of the great cook/hostess Fanny Cradock aired on 23rd October 2006. It received its terrestrial premiere on BBC2 on New Years Eve 2006. Fear of Fanny was nominated for a string of awards including a Broadcast award for best single drama and an RTS award for Julia Davis. Brian was himself nominated for the ‘Breakthrough talent’ award by BAFTA in 2007.
In his earlier life Brian studied English at Leeds University in the late 1980s but dropped out after two years. He was then a DJ at the Leeds Warehouse for two years – during the heady days of ‘baggy’ music and all things ‘Madchester’. In the early 90s he was the lead singer of a four-piece guitar band peddling 60s cover versions to working men’s clubs throughout the North West. In 1996 Brian qualified as maths teacher and has to date published 10 maths text and teacher-resource books. In 2002 became a maths teaching consultant – effectively training teachers.
The NRG Theatre Company stage production of Fear of Fanny premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002. The play then toured the UK in October and November 2003. Brian’s next play was Non-Scene, a dark satire on the life of Lionel, a gay serial killer. The play premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2003. Charlotte Knight
stumbled on the play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and left her card for him behind the bar.
