Laurence Bowen (b. 1964)
Alias:
Laurence J. Bowen
Born:
August 17, 1964
Laurence J. Bowen (born 17 August 1964) is a British television and film producer. After graduating from Oxford University in the 1980s, Bowen began his television career working for Bill Bryden at BBC Scotland as a researcher and trainee script editor before moving on to run the development arm of non-profit organisation First Film Foundation which he helped set up to champion new writers and film makers backed by a board that included Jeremy Thomas, David Putnam and Roland Joffé. In 1993 he left to work for Simon Curtis in the BBC where he produced Paradise (with Penny Downie and Dave Hill) for BBC2. Soon after he was appointed Head of Drama at Diverse Productions where he went on to produce The Hello Girls, Stone, Scissors, Paper (with Juliet Stevenson and Ken Stott, winner of the inaugural Dennis Potter Award) and Dual Balls (nominated for Bafta Film Award). Bowen and Philip Clarke then founded production company Feelgood Fiction in 1997. Bowen won a BAFTA for My Life as a Popat and a BAFTA nomination for Suburban Shootout together with RTS, Broadcast and Chicago Film Festival awards, Prix Jeunesse, Rose D'or, Emmy and BANFF nominations and most recently the Monte Carlo Golden Nymph for Best International Producer of the Year. Bowen's Producer and Executive Producer credits at Feelgood also include The Hello Girls (Series 2), Badger, Miranda, one-off TV films Double Bill, The English Harem by Anthony McCarten, George and Bernard Shaw (with Richard Griffiths and Robert Lindsay (actor)) and comedy series Gates for Sky UK. Gates was acquired by Warner Brothers and NBC and a US pilot commissioned written by Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldstein and directed by Mark Buckland.