Historical consultant
“Historical drama says as much about the time we are living in as it does about the time we are writing about”
HOW DID YOU BECOME A HISTORICAL CONSULTANT?
After studying archaeology at Cambridge, I assumed that I would become an academic, but then I realised that I didn’t want to become an expert on one area of a subject, but rather know a little about a lot of subjects. Initially, I became a TV documentary researcher, which gave me the chance to learn how to research programmes, write scripts, shoot and edit.
Having worked on documentary shows such as I then got my ‘break’ into the film world when Working Title Films asked me to act as a consultant on the 1998 film . Working with Michael Hirst, I got to see how a really first-rate drama writer puts historical fiction together, and from that point I was sure that this was what I wanted to do.
