Paul McNeilly

About me:

PERSONAL DETAILS

Height: 6ft 2ins

Hair: Shaven

Build: Medium

Eyes: Blue

Native Accent: London

REPRESENTATION: Billboard Personal Management, Unit 5, 11 Mowll St, London SW9 6BG Tel: 020 7735 9958 Billboard@btconnect.com, www.billboardpm.com

SHOWREEL (see blog)

TRAINING & SKILLS

TRAINING: The Poor School, TVI Studios – Los Angeles

SKILLS: Play writing, Improvisation, sight reading, most sports including boxing and football, extensive experience in stage combat

Extra Accents: Manchester, Yorkshire, RP, Geordie, West Country, Standard American.

FILM CREDITS:

Zebra Crossings (Crown Films: winner, SOCAL Festival, Best British Film and winner, European Independent Film of the year 2009),Night Time (104 Films), The Responsibility Virgin (RSA), Saxon (Sillwood Films. Winner, Best Drama, European Independent Film Festival, Paris 2008), Outlaw (Dir. nick Love, Vertigo films), The Danger Within (Bill and Ben Films), C**t (Swedenborg Films), I Will Never Play The Dane (Ground Floor Group), Slam! (Solaris Films), Trophy (UK Film Council), Over The Edge (Discovery Films), Tableaux of Love (Mahed Film Co), New Town Original (New Town Films), Bury It (Twin Track Films), Mike Bassett–England Manager (Hallmark), Poker Face (Raw Talent), A Bunch of Stuff (Loaded Films), Simple Minds (New Town Films), Driven (Tyne Tees/Pilgrim Pictures), Black Beauty (Warner Bros), Shopping (Channel Four Films)

THEATRE CREDITS:

I, Schemmings (County Hall SE1), The Winding Stick (Goldsmiths), Dried and Roasted at the Glitch and Turn (on-going site-specific tour incl. Southwark Playhouse), Cherry Picnic (Old Red Lion), Influenced (The Ecetera), Arrivederci Millwall (Stratford Circus, Union Theatre), Happy Families (Kings Head), Descent (Oval House), Not Gods But Giants (Traverse, Old Red Lion, White Bear), The Goys (Nuffield, Southampton), I’m No Angel (Nuffield Southampton), Revenger’s Tragedy (Hen & Chickens), Ladies Night (No.1 Tour), Macbeth (Circus Space), Egon Schiele (Duke of Cambridge), Picnic (The Gate), Lysistrata (Cracked Mirror), Hamlet (Title role; Towngate)

TELEVISION CREDITS:

Fur TV (MTV; Warp Films), Holby City (Christmas Special - BBC1), Hotel Babylon (BBC1), Afterlife (ITV), The Taming of the Shrew (BBC1), Bad Girls (ITV), M.I.T. (ITV), Teachers (Channel Four), McCready & Daughter (BBC1), Murder Rooms (ITV), Baddiel’s Syndrome (Sky), The Bill (ITV - 11 eps), Lock Stock - The Series (Channel Four), Doctors (BBC1), Tenth Kingdom (Sky/Carnival Films), Daylight Robbery (ITV), Taggart (STV - three-parter), City Central (BBC1), Dream Team (Sky - 4 eps), A Respectable Trade (BBC2 - four-parter), Bodyguards (ITV), The Knock III (ITV - 2 eps), Thief Takers (ITV), Cold Lazarus (Channel Four), Eleven Men Against Eleven (Channel Four), The Knock II (ITV - 3 eps), Soldier Soldier (ITV), Our Friends in the North (BBC2), Open Fire (Channel Four), Roughnecks II (BBC1 - 2 eps), The Magician (London Weekend), Covington Cross (Channel Four), An Exchange of Fire (Channel Four), Lovejoy (BBC1), Fools Gold (London Weekend), Running Late (BBC1), Van Der Valk (ITV)

OTHER:

40 Minutes Documentary 'Stage Struck' (BBC2), and the follow up, '40 Minutes On' (BBC4).

Founder member of NotGods Theatre Company (please see www.myspace.com/notgodstheatre)

Plenty of commercials including Holsten Pils with Denis Leary

WRITING CREDITS:

I, Schemmings ('Write On' Screenplay Festival, Southbank SE1), How to Fuck A Schmuck (Miscellany 1,2,3 - The Bubble and Squeak Collective, Hackney), Bubble and Squeak (Miscellany 1,2,3, The Bubble and Squeak Collective, Hackney), Precious Meat (Rehearsed Reading - The Water Poet), Cycles (Cento - Spring Board Festival, Leeds), Dried & Roasted At The Glitch & Turn (on-going, all-year- round, site-specific tour), Spirals (Bury Festival), Cherry Picnic (Old Red Lion), Not Gods But Giants (English Representative - International Festival at The Traverse, Edinburgh; The White Bear & The Old Red Lion; selected for the Theatre Museum Play Festival, Covent Garden), Egon Schiele (Duke of Cambridge & The White Bear - in aid of St Luke's Hospice). See play excerpts on www.myspace.com/notgodstheatre

Member of the BBC Writers Inclusion Zone.

Published poet - 'X24' by Black Dog Press

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PRESS REVIEWS for Dried & Roasted at the Glitch & Turn

*** "Ambitious show with huge potential" by Dominic di Nezza for remotegoat on 13/05/08

The phrase 'site-specific' can bring to mind a company that has found a flash location and shoehorned a play into it. Not Gods Theatre Co however, they have found an excellent formula for success in staging their entertaining show in a variety of upstairs rooms in a selection of Soho pubs.

Setting itself up as a typical late night in the bar of the 'Glitch & Turn', we are introduced to a plethora of typical denizens, including bored office workers, women looking (vainly) for a good time and everything in between. Our host is Nosh, a doorman with a penchant for philosophy, played - and indeed written - expertly by Paul McNeilly, who guides us through the late-night drinkers and the stories behind them.

Stephen Newbury and Myles Horgan also intrigue as uber-banal drinking buddies, thinly held together by their need to drown their lethargy... Katharine Peachey and Michael Quartey give full-bloodied performances...

...McNeilly and Peachey have done an excellent job in choreographing the action...Landlord! I'll have another!

****"Original quirky, very funny" by Sarah Miles on 08/05/08

I thoroughly enjoyed this new site-specific comedy. Set in a real Hoxton pub, we meet an array of regulars who each take their turn to both tickle and terrify the audience - with no holds barred.

The script is brilliant; witty and filthy in equal measure with a raw and edgy dark humour that was as quick and as fierce as anything by Martin McDonnagh or Shane Meadows. Each character unfolds their story through some pretty meaty and skillfully crafted monologues and play out some excellently observed scenes which had the audience in stitches.

The cast can not be faulted either; writer, Paul McNeilly, is equally comfortable on stage and is excellent as the pub's enlightened bouncer, a kind of ring-master for the evening. Also well worth a mention is the brilliant Tony Verner, who plays the pub's resident alcoholic, Legend.

I would really recommend anyone to seek out this production - it's an exciting, original and highly entertaining piece of theatre with bags of spirit and humour that packs a mighty punch.

PRESS REVIEWS for 'Cherry Picnic':

**** 'The fictional British gangster who nails heads to floors but still loves his mum is a tired creation who should be packed off to his Spanish villa. But in his latest play, writer Paul McNeilly has persuaded the character out of retirement and back to his rightful place as king of the driftwood washed up on Britain's sink estates. Terry Fisher, played with convincing pop-eyed danger by the author himself, is that gangster - devoted to his dog, but whose very name inspires terror. And yet there is much more to him, much more than the usual grotesque lovable-but-vicious gangster served up by lazier writers.

> McNeilly has created a hilarious, foulmouthed, surreal world where the universal language of self-help has infiltrated the patios of the second rate hit man. It's as if M Scott Peck had met the Kray twins and convinced them of the power of positive thinking. Acted with precision and gusto by a talented bunch of young actors Cherry Picnic is as engaging, dangerous and laugh-out-loud piece of fringe theatre as you'll find. The detail of McNeilly's direction and the use of sound to power the narrative make this a must see'. - Piers Eady, Ham and High, London

'Funny and fast moving...Paul McNeilly's play is a definite chip off the 'Mojo/Lock Stock' block but it pulls its weight in top notch gags'. - Time Out

***** 'This is a well crafted and inspired script that makes you laugh out loud...strong acting and good direction make it a hilarious evening out...all the cast deserve to be congratulated on fine performances'. - Camden New Journal

'The writing is sharp and witty and the imagery used is very evocative...descends into violent farce, with an ending that wouldn't look out of place in a John Webster play'. - Theatre World

PRESS REVIEWS for 'Not Gods But Giants':

'Paul McNeilly is the kind of actor who seems to pin you to your chair with his gaze. He's a rangy, knuckle-headed menace of a man, with angular cheekbones...he wrote 'Not Gods But Giants', and it's as hard as a bag of rocks...

The considerable achievement of McNeilly's play is to develop domestic violence as his dramatic starting point rather than exploit it as a catastrophe. Under precise character direction...the excellent cast elucidate McNeilly's subtle explorations of the idea that domestic violence against women is the product of suppressed violence between men...

This is raw and intelligent stuff from a promising writer and a promising company. - Tom Morris, Time Out

'It is as though T.S. Eliot were collaborating with John Osbourne...the English language triumphs in this intelligent play'. - Terry Brotherstone, Workers Press

'Fresh and tough...skilfully trod by Paul McNeilly's cast'. - Benedict Nightingale, The Times

'A brave new company...exciting writing, wonderful acting'. - Alan Rickman

'Excellent acting abounds in this memorable production, in which highly literate blank verse fuses with slice-of-life dialogue to maximum effect, and the sense of dark despair, like a suppressed scream, is always close to the surface'. - Brain G. Cooper, The Stage

PRESS REVIEWS for 'Egon Schiele':

'With stark Schiele-like paintings dominating the set, we are immediately thrust into Paul McNeilly's abrasive, magnetic play on the tortured artist. Originally a one-hander, 'Egon Schiele' has been reworked into a powerful domestic drama...

A punchy and arresting play, 'Egon Schiele' is well served by McNeilly's confident direction and promising talent as a dramatist. An unexpectedly robust and entertaining evening'. - Nicola Venning, What's On

'Lively biodrama...not afraid to stamp on the grave of it's subject'. - Time Out