Course Director - Paul McNeilly
'Paul McNeilly is one of the best acting tutors in the UK with a wealth of film and TV experience. His style is refreshingly honest and brings great results. Highly recommended course'. Does Good Productions
Paul began his professional acting career over 27 years ago, studying at The Poor School. Whilst continuing to act he has also moved to the other side of the camera and is currently co-producing 3 feature films for various production companies.
He conceived of the idea that a drama school should be a facility for the industry from day 1, so the demands of the school are suited to, and fully shaped by, the working professionals who teach there.
Paul will be directing abd producing a new feature in 2017 'What Abiut Me?'. He is also currently heavily involved in the production and casting of two feature films 'Game Over', and 'Out of Breath', both scheduled for 2017. He is is also a production partner of feature 'Shill', and a series for US TV, 'TEP - Exterminate With Extreme Prejudice'.
In 2017 he appears in new feature 'The Great Unwashed' by Mangoose Films, playing Gangster Charlie.
He made his acting debut playing Hamlet at The Towngate, Basildon. He now has over 60 TV and film appearances to his credit – including two European Independent Feature Films Of The Year – Saxon, followed a year later by Zebra Crossing - as well as Danny in Outlaw, by Nick Love. He played ‘Auntie’, a psychotic transvestite in horror feature film, Community to excellent reviews.
Paul has appeared in many landmark, award-winning TV programmes, including: Our Friends In The North (BBC2 – Bafta winner – Best Drama Serial), 10th Kingdom (The biggest US TV series in history), Cold Lazarus (Dennis Potter’s final series, Channel Four), and A Respectable Trade (BBC1 – Bafta nominated – Best Drama Series), Eleven Men Against Eleven (Channel Four – nomination, Bafta Best Drama, winner Best Comedy, RST Awards). He is currently ‘The Unfriendliest Landlord In The World’, in Channel 4’s ‘Friday Night Dinner’, (his third series) and recently completed the guest lead role of Simon Kellman in ‘Casualty’.
Further TV appearances also include guest leads in Taggart (STV), The Knock (two series – ITV), The Bill (ITV – 12 guest and lead appearances in all), Doctors (BBC1), Dream Team (Sky), Lock, Stock, The Series (Channel 4). Other shows include ‘Holby City’ (BBC1 – Christmas Special), Merlin (BBC1), Macready and Daughter (BBC1), Fool’s Gold (ITV), Open Fire (Channel Four), Afterlife (ITV), and Running Late (Screen One – BBC1, written by Simon Gray).
Paul has many theatre credits to his name, including runs at The Traverse, (a 7-hander that he also wrote and produced), The Gate (London), The Nuffield (Southampton), The Southwark Playhouse, as well as King's Theatre (Edinburgh), Theatre Royal Bath, His Majesty’s (Aberdeen), and Theatre Royal Brighton, Bristol Hippodrome and also stints on the London Fringe, including The White Bear, The Old Red Lion, Oval House, Stratford Circus, Union Theatre and the Etcetera. He has also acted in site-specific productions of Wild Turkey (Naarch TC. directed by Nadia Fall of The National Theatre) in Shoreditch, East London, and his own Dried and Roasted at The Glitch and Turn in the West End. (NotGods T.C).
An experienced playwright, producer and director, his most recent production was in September 2014, ‘Bubble and Squeak’, which played at the site specific Rolling Stock and The Bridge in Shoreditch, to excellent reviews and a last night standing ovation. It premiered at the London Theatre, for the Lewisham Fringe Festival.
His second play, ‘Not Gods But Giants’, was invited to be England’s representative at the prestigious Traverse, Edinburgh, produced and directed by Paul, with his company ‘Theatre Treasures Theatre Co’.
His play ‘Cherry Picnic’, ran for three weeks at The Old Red Lion to excellent reviews, and his production of a new site-specific play ‘Dried and Roasted at the Glitch and Turn’ has run for eight years in London, including shows at the Southwark Playhouse, before its highly successful revival in August 2014.
Paul also runs a class for actors in London called 'The Bubble and Squeak Collective', where the idea for the Industry Acting School originated from.
These workshops have led to over 45 offers of representation from agents such as Felix de Wolfe, Elaine Murphy, Shane Collins, Billboard Personal Management, and Westwood Meredith Management. Actors have been placed in roles in TV (including BBC and Channel Four), leads for The Discovery Channel, numerous feature films (Community, Kick Ass 2, Hollyoaks, Untold Story), two internet series, numerous short films, plus our showcases in the West End of London and at The Winterflood Theatre, St. Paul’s. Guests included casting directors Dan Hubbard, Sarah Hughes, Kathleen Hutchison (Executive Producer of Holby City) and TV director, Nigel Douglas.
For all of Paul’s professional history: