Brian Percival

Brian Percival – award winning, Liverpool-born film director

Liverpool’s own award winning director, Brian Percival, took time out of his busy schedule to tell us all about his school days in Garston.
Such is the director’s love for his home city, Brian chose to hold a charity screening in aid of Liverpool-based Clapperboard UK, of his latest film, The Book Thief at Liverpool’s Picturehouse@FACT, the evening before its official nationwide release.
Amongst his work Brian directed a nine-minute short film ‘About a Girl’ which won the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film and several film festival awards in 2001.
Since 2010 he has directed seven episodes of the ITV British period drama, Downton Abbey. For his work on the show Brian won the 2010 BAFTA Craft award for Best Fiction Director and the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Mini-series, Movie or a Dramatic Special.
In September 2011 Brian dedicated the Emmy he won in memory of the victims of the Hillsborough football disaster.

My schools: I attended St Marys CE School in Garston, now demolished with housing on the site and New Heys Comprehensive, Liverpool.
My favourite teacher: Mrs Paisley. I remember that her husband, Bob (the then Liverpool FC trainer) used to dress up as Father Christmas and give us all Christmas presents.

Favourite subject at school: I would have to say art and technical drawing were my favourites subjects at school.

Were you streetwise or a bit of a geek? I wandered the fine line in between, I probably thought
I was more streetwise than I actually was.

My favourite childhood band/singer: Believe it or not there was nothing in the least remotely credible until I left school, or at least nothing that I would own up to here.
My favourite extra-curricular activity: Cycling and swimming, that was until I discovered the joys of girls and other vices, but we won’t go into that.

Do you remember your first school crush? Yes. I’m saying no more as I was only about six-years-old at the time.

My favourite book: I always loved reading Down and Out in Paris and London.

School dinners: All I can say is ‘salads served on warm plates’, enough said!

My ambitions at school: I always wanted to become an architect or possibly a pilot, neither of which appeal to me now.