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Poet, author, actor, director, broadcaster,
& screenwriter
FILM, TELEVISION, THEATRE
& RADIO
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Directing the First World War sequence
from "Steel be my Sister"
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On Location with Gods and Generals
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Click here to launch a clip of Gods and Generals
Click here to view trailers from Chaos and Pattern
Current Activities
He has completed the 5-film series - Chaos & Pattern: Adventures in Science & Engineering: educational documentaries on cutting-edge experiments in science and engineering.
The Green Gene
Cells & Scaffolds
The Chaos Treasure Hunt
The Paddleworm Robot
Butterfly Light
Leo wrote, directed, produced, and photographed the films, with Michael McCarthy, a double BAFTA winner, as sound recordist & dubbing mixer; the editor was Greg Yonwin.
Two films show world-beating experiments: in The Green Gene a biologist has reprogrammed liver cells into pancreas cells, and may therefore have found a way to combat diabetes; in Butterfly Light a physicist has created a new branch of physics which is transforming the internet, and has already resulted in a contribution to a Nobel Prize, and offers the possibility of a complete new branch of medical science. The Paddleworm Robot shows wildly creative lateral thinking: a biomimetics engineer who is making a robot that can wriggle like a paddleworm in the human guts, and therefore make colon endoscopy far safer and more efficient.
There are sequences showing tropical blue butterflies from the Brazilian jungle trying to attract a mate; sequences showing Venus Fly-traps and jumping robots; teenagers climb the Cornish cliffs, following a rock-climbing professor who uses chaos theory to create equations which will help locate treasure-troves of precious metals in folds of rocks; teenagers create live cartoons, chat about football accidents, bowel problems, lasers, or their diabetes; there is great jazz and virtuoso banjo playing. Science and engineering can be exciting.
Leo has now been commissioned to create a sixth film to act as introduction to the series; it is called Chaos & Pattern; Fast Forward.
There is a special screening in the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) for 7.0 pm on Friday February 22nd, at which Chaos & Pattern: Fast Forward will be screened.
FILMS
FOR TELEVISION (as writer, or writer-director)
The Drinking Party (writer)
directed by Jonathan Miller, starring Leo McKern, Alan Bennett,
John Fortune
The Death of Socrates (writer)
directed by Jonathan Miller, starring Leo McKern;
adaptations of Plato's dialogues.
1065 and all that (writer-director)
an impression of England as it existed before the Norman Conquest.
Dynamo (writer-director)
a life of Michael Faraday, starring Ian Richardson.
China and the Barbarians (writer-director)
how two empires, the British and the Chinese, failed to understand
each other, with disastrous consequences.
Who'll Buy a Bubble? (writer-director)
improvised happenings in the East End of London.
Celluloid Love (writer-director)
the story of a model born to a family of artists; with William Walton,
Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft.
"Steel be my Sister" (writer-director)
the life and work of the poet-painter David Jones; sequences from In
Parenthesis narrated by Donald Houston, HTV entry for the Italia
Prize
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Soul of a Nation (writer)
the life and work of King Bhumiphol of Thailand, the narration spoken
by Sir John Gielgud.
"Steel be my Sister", filming
In Parenthesis by David Jones: the battle of the
Somme
rehearsing the trench sequence |
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| In Parenthesis: the
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Leo also created and directed the TV series Six Bites of the
Cherry, human life in six episodes of poetry and song, each
episode containing a specially created dance sequence to poems by Lorca,
choreographed by Malcolm Clare who also danced the lead.
| He has worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood on two movies: -
A Man for Deajum's Wife, and Raven Warrior.
He co-wrote Gods and Generals, a screenplay for Ted
Turner Pictures about the American Civil War, produced and directed
by Ron Maxwell, executive producer Ted Turner, starring Robert Duvall,
Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang, and Mira Sorvino (Warner Bros 2003). |
In the Queen Charlotte Islands, surveying locations for Raven
Warrior, with director Ron Maxwell |
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On Location with Gods and Generals
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Civil War re-enacters relax during a break
in filming the battle of Fredricksburg.
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A Confederate camp
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Critics have said -
| on Dynamo |
| Quite excellent. |
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Maurice Richardson, THE OBSERVER
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| on The Drinking Party |
| The Drinking Party" set me reeling happily. I can't
recall another programme more likely to start a philosophy boom. |
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Maurice Wiggin, SUNDAY TIMES
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on The Death of Socrates
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| came off beautifully. |
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Milton Shulman, EVENING STANDARD
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on China and the Barbarians
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| Sober splendours. |
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Maurice Wiggin, SUNDAY TIMES
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| on Who'll Buy a Bubble? |
| Leo Aylen's absorbing and uncomfortable documentary. |
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Sean Day-Lewis, DAILY TELEGRAPH
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| on Soul of a Nation |
| I enjoyed Soul of a Nation. It conveyed very powerfully something
of the strange nature of this unique country. A remarkable achievement. |
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Bernard Levin, THE TIMES
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| on 1065 and All That |
| Leo Aylen's masterly programme |
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T.C.Worsley, FINANCIAL TIMES
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| on Gods and Generals |
| So much that's good about Gods and Generals. |
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Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
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| An awesome sense of authenticity and scope. |
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Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES
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THEATRE
For Greenwich Theatre Leo wrote lyrics for the documentary
musical Down the Arches, and a pantomime, as well as directing
his own translation of the Antigone of Sophocles, starring
Freddie Jones. He adapted the book of No Trams to Lime Street
as a musical (Bill Kenwright tour).
He wrote and directed two plays designed to be staged in churches, with
a cast of professional actors and local youth - George,
starring Timothy West, for its opening run, and The Adoration
of the Magi.
During 1999 - 2000 he was Poet in Residence at the Orange Tree Theatre,
Richmond; this included presenting sequences from two new verse plays.
He has shared the stage or microphone with distinguished actors such
as Sara Kestelman, Alfred Molina, Dorothy Tutin, and Janet Suzman.
| As Oberon, having taken over from Edward de Souza
in Shakespeare & Music |
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SEE GREEK THEATRE AND CIVILISATION
for the Greenwich Theatre production of Sophocles' Antigone
which he translated and directed.
Critics have said -
| on George |
| It was all very well presented, and after last night no one
can say that the devil has all the good theatres. |
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Terry Coleman, THE GUARDIAN
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| on Hutch-builder to Her Majesty |
| Embittered sumptuosity of language. |
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Eric Shorter, DAILY TELEGRAPH
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| on Antigone |
| Gymnastic simplicity. |
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Gary O'Connor, FINANCIAL TIMES
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| An ambitious and inventive evening |
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Eric Shorter, DAILY TELEGRAPH
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RADIO
He has created, presented, and acted in, various features
for BBC Radio 3 & 4. These include -
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Zulu Dreamtime, a poet's journey through KwaZulu. With
Allina Ndebele, tapestry weaver of Zulu stories, whose son's wedding
forms a climax to the programme
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Recording Allina Ndebele in her hut of the ancestors;
producer Nigel Acheson |
Zulu Dreamtime (R4): part of the Eyewitness series
of poets' travels, in which Leo returned to where he was born in KwaZulu,
South Africa, just after the liberation election of 1994. Encounters
with Zulus are linked by Leo's verse narration, and the programme culminates
in a Zulu wedding. The programme aroused so much interest that Leo's
photograph was in three national newspapers, - most unusual for a radio
programme.
Le Far West (R3); Leo's new translations of songs by
Jacques Brel, acted as mini- dramas by Leo and Caroline John, to Brel's
music played on the piano by Jonathan Cohen, alternating with Brel's
own rendering of the songs, and punctuated with Leo's translations of
Brel's remarks acted by Alfred Molina.
An Unconquered God (R3); Leo's translations from classical
Greek poetry on the subject of love and sex, performed by him and Sara
Kestelman.
Woman's Brief Season (R3); more of Leo's translations
from classical Greek poetry on men's attitudes to women and women's
attitudes to men, performed by him and Maxine Audley.
Dancing Bach (R3); Leo as poet and church organist presents
five of Bach's chorale preludes to choreographer Terry Gilbert, who
devises dance numbers to them, and to children who give their own pictorial
reactions to the music; this is intercut with the reactions of theologians
and musicians, including the Bach expert, David Stancliffe, Bishop of
Salisbury.
Leo devised Poetry in Action (R3), nominated for the Sony awards, of which three series
were transmitted, in 1993, 1994, 1995. In these series, themed anthologies
of poems, on subjects of social interest like transport and housing,
were intercut with documentary actuality from BBC archives.
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With Gerry Anderson, presenter of Anderson Country
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Leo was heard regularly on Radio 4, Anderson Country
& The Afternoon Shift, from 1995 - 1997, where he
created poems out of current news stories. In 1998 he did the same thing
on The Today Programme.
His translation of The Birds by Aristophanes was performed
twice on BBC Radio 3.
He has also worked as a director in BBC Education, directing a contemporary
version of his translation of The Birds, and creating
Courtship and Marriage in Painting, which won him a BBC
Merit Award.
Critics have said -
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on The Birds
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| Comedy, poetry, satire, bawdy, and pantomime, combine here
to hit the external targets bang on with wisdom, cynicism, and
irreverence. |
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Hilary Heywood, THE TIMES
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| on Le Far West |
| Wryly observed experience. Using new translations of some
of those edgy lyrics, Leo Aylen and Caroline John speak them like
the good verse they are. |
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Gillian Reynolds, THE TELEGRAPH
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Excellent study.
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THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
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| Leo Aylen's life of Jacques Brel, singer, songwriter, film
director, and much else besides, tells us everything and nothing
about him - nothing because there's not a smidgen of biographical
detail; everything because it suggests that to know his lyrics
and his verse and the Piaf-like intensity of his vocal style is
to know everything worth knowing about him. Brel's words cut through
life's illusions like a hot knife through butter. |
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THE TIMES
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| Le Far West proves that popular songwriting can be pure poetry
too. |
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THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
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| on Zulu Dreamtime |
| A rich warm evocation of the spirit of the place, which gives
you a sniff of how exciting South African life is now. |
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THE INDEPENDENT
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| The less music the Zulus have in them, we learn, the less
human they are considered to be. By this standard, the singing
Zulus we hear tonight are human to the nth degree. |
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THE TIMES
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| Radio documentaries come no more lyrical than this evocation
of Zululand. Produced (by Nigel Acheson) as a tapestry of memories
and music, spiked with fragments of poetry, interviews and conversation,
the whole thing is a portrait of the past and present of one of
the most potent of the world's warrior cultures. The presenter,
poet Leo Aylen, is the son of a South African bishop who resisted
apartheid and wisely encouraged his son to respect Africans. Pick
of the week. |
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THE SUNDAY TIMES
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| on Dancing Bach |
| Utterly fascinating. Musicologists unravelled the chorale
preludes to reveal the astonishing intricacy of their form, theologians
spoke of the scriptural relation between music and text - you
could hear the wise virgins scurrying about, trimming their lamps
- and children imagined volcanoes and electric chairs as they
listened to the harrowing of hell. In short, the programme concluded,
Bach meets you on your own terms: if you want a beautiful tune,
or gorgeous harmony, or elaborate cleverness, you will find it
in Bach. |
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Sue Gaisford, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
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