Tom Harvey MBE is a BAFTA winning creative entrepreneur and writer.

Early life edit

Harvey was born outside Stevenage New Town; his father was sculptor Mark Harvey [1] and his grandfather was author William Fryer Harvey. He attended the Nobel School Stevenage and the London College of Printing, where he studied photography, film and television.

Career edit

Harvey is Chair of hip-hop dance theatre company BirdGang Ltd and a Trustee of Peter Marlow Foundation.[2] Harvey was founder and CEO of London-based festival SohoCreate.[3] The festival explored creativity and championed creative people and their work. Harvey was Chief Executive of Northern Film & Media,[4][5] the creative industries development agency for North East England. The company invests in creative people, ideas and companies, working in film, television, web, mobile, games and music.

With North Star Ventures, Harvey helped raise £6m now invested in a range of film and tv projects. Harvey is an Executive Producer on One Night in Turin directed by James Erskine,[6] and feature films Rising Tide, No Place To Hide, Frank, directed by Richard Heslop and Unconditional, directed by Bryn Higgins.[7]

Harvey began working in the media industry at David Puttnam's feature film company Enigma Productions. He then worked as an Assistant Director, Production Manager and Producer across a range of productions, including US and UK movies, television films and series, documentaries, short films and pop promos, including Happy Mondays and New Order, including their controversial promo Touched by the Hand of God, directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

He ran the Edinburgh International Television Festival for three years, developing the festival strands for young people, TVYP and TV25.[8] He worked in senior management at the BBC as Commissions and Strategy Executive on BBC2 for Michael Jackson and as Manager of the Independent Commissioning Group for Jane Root.[9] He was Managing Director of online interactive entertainment company XPT with Tim Wright and Rob Bevan.[citation needed]

As a playwright Harvey wrote the plays Pool "The Nature of Gravity" "Our Secret Home" "About Last Night" "Dead Dog" "Rich" and Lydia[10] about Henri Matisse’s final muse Lydia Delectorskaya. "Pool" won the Brockley Jack Theatre playwriting competition in 2014[11] and was produced by the Theatre in May/June 2014.[12] Verbatim play ABOUT LAST NIGHT on the 2017 general election, was performed at the Arcola Theatre with a cast including Monica Dolan and Helen Belbin.[13] Harvey's short plays have been performed at The Park Theatre,[14] The Jack,[15] Theatre 503, Arts Theatre and The Cockpit.[16] HER was selected for the ONE Festival at The Space Theatre[17] and the FREE festival at Southwark Playhouse.[18]

Harvey won the 2023 Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition at the Cork International Short Story Festival,[19] he was a short story finalist in the London Independent Story Prize[20] and has had work published by Litro Magazine,[21] Mercurious[22] and The Wells Street Journal.

Harvey is a Fellow 2007 of the Clore Leadership Programme,[23] a graduate of Harvard Business School’s short course in Private Equity and Venture Capital 2009,[24] and a Common Purpose Graduate 2003.[25]

Membership edit

Harvey is a member of BAFTA.[26] He has an honours degree in film & TV,[citation needed] and in the past has served on the advisory board for IPPR North,[27][failed verification] the Board of Culture North East and the management board of music accelerator Generator.[28][failed verification]

Awards edit

In the 2012 New Year Honours Harvey was awarded an MBE for services to the creative industries.[29]

Winner 2023 Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition at the Cork International Short Story Festival,[30]

References edit

  1. ^ "Polar Bear, by Mark Harvey".
  2. ^ "Tom HARVEY personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". Companies House UK.
  3. ^ "SohoCreate – where many creative minds meet". 11 May 2016.
  4. ^ "People: Tom Harvey". Creative Economy. British Council. 13 September 2011.
  5. ^ "Northern Film & Media chief Tom Harvey steps down" The Journal, 29 May 2012
  6. ^ "One Night in Turin (2010) - IMDb". IMDb.
  7. ^ "Unconditional Love (2012) - IMDb". IMDb.
  8. ^ [1][dead link]
  9. ^ "Tom Harvey | People | Creative and Cultural Economy | British Council". Archived from the original on 2011-09-06. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
  10. ^ "Lydia - the musical". Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 2014-04-10.
  11. ^ "Brockley Jack Theatre - Write Now Festival".
  12. ^ "Tom Gutteridge: Friend's career change is to be applauded - Tom Gutteridge - the Journal". Archived from the original on 2014-07-12. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  13. ^ "About Last Night". 2 June 2017.
  14. ^ "Park Theatre".
  15. ^ http://www.brockleyjack.co.uk/writenow/write-now-6-shorts/ [bare URL PDF]
  16. ^ "Little Pieces of Gold's Showcase for new writing | the Cockpit".
  17. ^ https://space.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/PROGRAMME.pdf [dead link]
  18. ^ "Faith". 28 February 2017.
  19. ^ "Awards".
  20. ^ "LISP 2022 Winners and Finalists!". London Independent Story Prize. 12 December 2022.
  21. ^ "Scarper". Litro Magazine. 11 June 2022.
  22. ^ "Thank you but how am I free?". Mercurious magazine.
  23. ^ "The Clore Leadership Programme". Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  24. ^ "Home | S4S International".
  25. ^ "Tom Harvey | HuffPost".
  26. ^ "Full list of BAFTA members 16.8.10.pdf"BAFTA, Updated 16 August 2010
  27. ^ "IPPR North". 26 March 2014.
  28. ^ "Home". generator.org.uk.
  29. ^ "New Year Honours 2012: Full list of recipients". 31 December 2011.
  30. ^ "Awards".