Steven Clarke
agent: Camilla Chiverton - camilla@sternwild.com
Steven Clarke is an award-winning director, producer, writer and show-runner with over 20 years experience. He has produced multiple critically acclaimed films, from scripted drama, to drama-doc and documentary, for NGC/Disney+, Discovery, PBS and Arte, as well as all the main UK broadcasters. His films have won a BAFTA, an RTS, been Grierson, BAFTA and Realscreen nominated, and won a European award for ‘Innovation in Scientific Drama’. Several of his hit shows have garnered global headlines. He has a reputation for delivering powerful, emotionally charged and visually stunning films that often deliver complex narratives through compelling story-telling. He’s worked with a wide range of talent, from A-list comedians to professional academics, and eye-witness contributors to top-flight actors. He gave Tom Hiddleston his first ever TV role.
Across all of his work, Steven combines visual ambition and flair with strong, well-honed skills in writing and shaping narrative. In all of his roles he shows leadership and creative vision. He has huge experience running large teams and big budgets, as well as managing and bringing the best out of on-screen talent. He directed the Bear Grylls sequences, in locations all over the world, for the multi-Emmy nominated, premium blue-chip natural history series, ‘Hostile Planet’, for NGC/Disney+.
Steven’s filmmaking career has been ratings hitting and headline grabbing. He directed the first two episodes for the premium 2023 BBC history series,‘Union’ with Professor David Olusoga, which received universal critical acclaim (‘superbly done’, Daily Telegraph) and won RTS awards for best series and best presenter. Earlier in his career, his C4 series ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘Six Wives of Henry VIII’ were both BAFTA nominated. ‘Elizabeth got more viewers than Friends, Frasier and Ali G’ was a Daily Telegraph headline, and the New York Times called Six Wives ‘endlessly gripping’. Both series remain among the Channel’s highest-ever rating history shows. Steven’s 2018 C4 science doc, ‘First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man’ revealed (through DNA) that one of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, known as Cheddar Man, was very dark-skinned, leading to headlines around the world, including a Tweet from MP (now Foreign Secretary) David Lammy: ‘Solidarity with you, Cheddar Man. Wish I knew about you when I was growing up and people asked me where I was ‘really’ from. North London, bruv.’
Steven has also produced some big hits in the travel/adventure space. He was Show Runner and Director on a much watched prime-time two-parter for ITV1, ‘John Bishop’s Great Whale Rescue’, an ambitious and stylish ob-doc, fronted by the A-list comedian (‘an absorbing and emotional journey’, I-news). ‘Predators Up Close’, for Discovery, combined premium blue-chip natural history with presenter Joel Lambert coming face to face with lions, polar bears and sharks in extreme environments (‘powerful and visceral’, Radio Times). ‘Bigfoot Files’, filmed in the USA, Russia and Himalayas, was a hit for both C4 and NGC (‘Bigfoot: the New Evidence’ was Realscreen nominated).
Having begun his career in theatre, Steven has used drama extensively in his work. As Show Runner on drama-doc ‘Victoria Cross Heroes’ (C5), he gave Tom Hiddleston his first television role, as Captain Jack Randle. ‘Great Escape, The Untold Story’ (‘evokes a real sense of tragedy’, FT), for ITV, combined veteran interviews with drama, and was released by MGM on DVD to accompany the classic movie. Writing has always been a core skill (Steven is a graduate of Oxford University, with a First Class degree in English) and he co-wrote (and produced) a fully scripted drama, ‘Dinosaur Hunters’, for C4 (‘a stunning scientific adventure’, Guardian). It won a BAFTA as well as the prestigious ‘EuroPAWS’ award for ‘innovation in a scientific drama’. He also directed in the ‘true crime’ space on C5’s drama-doc series, ‘Murder Trail’.