Simon Channing Williams

Production

Simon Channing Williams

Born 1945-06-10 · Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, UK

Simon Channing Williams (10 June 1945 – 11 April 2009) was a British film producer. After having worked as a production assistant and producer of TV films and TV series in the 1970s and early 1980s, he and Mike Leigh formed the film production company Thin Man Films in 1988. This company has produced all of Mike Leigh's films since then, among them the double Oscar-winning Topsy-Turvy, the Oscar-nominated Vera Drake and the Palme d'Or-winning Secrets & Lies. In addition to his collaborations with Mike Leigh, he also produced other films, including teen suicide drama New Year's Day (2001 film) in 1999. He co-produced Nick Love's first film Goodbye Charlie Bright in 2000, and the same year he formed Potboiler Productions with producer Gail Egan (who also works closely with Mike Leigh and has been involved in the production of several of his films). Through Potboiler Productions Channing Williams produced Douglas McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby and Fernando Meirelles' Oscar-winning The Constant Gardener. Channing Williams died aged 63, in Cornwall on 11 April 2009, five years after being diagnosed with cancer. Leigh paid tribute saying "His great phrase was 'let's just get on with things' and right almost to the last he was still working. He was a very extraordinary big man and he will be missed universally." Leigh dedicated his 2010 film Another Year to the memory of Simon Channing Williams. Following Channing Williams' death, Mike Leigh started to collaborate with producer Georgina Lowe, who in 2011 took over Channing Williams' half of Thin Man Films. A Most Wanted Man was dedicated to both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Simon Channing Williams in the closing credits. Description above from the Wikipedia article Simon Channing Williams, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

The Constant Gardener poster
7.0

Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.

The Constant Gardener

2005

Naked poster
7.3

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.

Naked

1993

Happy-Go-Lucky poster
6.6

A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.

Happy-Go-Lucky

2008

Secrets & Lies poster
7.6

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

Secrets & Lies

1996

Vera Drake poster
7.2

Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.

Vera Drake

2004

All or Nothing poster
7.1

Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.

All or Nothing

2002

Career Girls poster
6.6

A young college student in London moves into a flat and becomes best friends with a flatmate; the former moves into her own flat 4 years later but 6 years after their parting, the former returns to London to pay the latter a visit.

Career Girls

1997

Topsy-Turvy poster
6.6

For nearly a decade, Gilbert and Sullivan’s collaborations have delighted the English people. But in 1884, as a London heat wave cuts into the theater trade, their latest work, "Princess Ida", receives lukewarm press. In an effort to reconcile their creative differences and drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, they went on to create the hit opera "The Mikado", one of the duo's greatest successes.

Topsy-Turvy

1999

Nicholas Nickleby poster
6.8

Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly grasping uncle.

Nicholas Nickleby

2002

Jack & Sarah poster
6.8

Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.

Jack & Sarah

1995

Life Is Sweet poster
7.0

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.

Life Is Sweet

1991

High Hopes poster
7.0

Working-class couple Shirley and Cyril are in conflict over whether they should have children, their problems with 'yuppies' moving into the neighbourhood and outpricing them, and the advent of Cyril's ageing mother's seventieth birthday.

High Hopes

1989

Man About Dog poster
6.5

Three pedigree chumps learn that every underdog has its day in this freewheeling Irish comedy. In hock to the tune of £50,000 to a Belfast bookie and saddled with a dopey greyhound that wouldn't run if its backside was on fire, the likely lads head south on a road trip in the hope of seeing a man about a dog. Foul-mouthed and funny, Man About Dog is full of great craic.

Man About Dog

2004

Brothers of the Head poster
5.5

In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.

Brothers of the Head

2006

When the Whales Came poster
6.4

A pair of children befriend an eccentric old man, who lives isolated on the far shore of their island home. But it turns out that the old man knows a terrible secret about the island and the whales who sometimes come. Meanwhile WWI is making life hard in the village.

When the Whales Came

1989

No artwork available
7.5

The once-reknowned escape-artist and magician, Kandinsky, is now reduced to confounding the staff and inmates of his retirement home.

The Great Kandinsky

1995

Goodbye Charlie Bright poster
5.9

Following Charlie Bright and his friends over one hot summer on the South London housing estate where they live. With Tommy about to join the army and Francis having fallen in love, friendships and loyalties are tested as the friends drift in their own directions.

Goodbye Charlie Bright

2001

New Year's Day poster
5.3

Two 17-year-old boys mark the new year by doing twelve dangerous but exciting tasks set for them by their friends.

New Year's Day

2001

Two Mikes Don't Make a Wright poster
5.3

Theatrical packaging of three comic shorts: Dean Parisot & Steven Wright's comedy "The Appointments of Dennis Jennings" (1988), Michael Moore's documentary "Pets or Meat" (1992), and Mike Leigh & Jim Broadbent's satirical mockumentary "A Sense of History" (1992).

Two Mikes Don't Make a Wright

1993

A Sense of History poster
7.3

Jim Broadbent wrote and starred in this short film directed by none other than Mike Leigh. As a member of the landed gentry, the 23rd Earl of Leete has a duty to maintain and expand his lands. Shot in the style and manner of a BBC documentary, Broadbent tells his family history to the crew, who slowly come to realise - as do we - that things are not what they seem.

A Sense of History

1992