James Robert Runcie was born on 7 May 1959 and is a British novelist, documentary filmmaker, television producer and playwright.
15 Facts About James Runcie
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James Runcie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a visiting professor at Bath Spa University and was Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4 from 2016 - 2020.
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James Runcie was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, Marlborough College, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
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James Runcie has written the novels The Discovery of Chocolate, The Colour of Heaven, Canvey Island, East Fortune and The Great Passion.
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James Runcie writes lifestyle pieces about family and literature for major UK newspapers.
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From 1983 to 1985, James Runcie worked in radio drama for BBC Scotland as a writer and director.
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James Runcie's work included Miss Julie, The White Devil, Roderick Hudson, Men Should Weep, and A Private Grief.
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James Runcie is a freelance director of documentary films, and has produced documentaries featuring the writers Hilary Mantel, JK Rowling and J G Ballard, as well as making My Father, filmed a week before Robert Runcie's death, and the six-part series How Buildings Learn.
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James Runcie has worked with presenters including David Starkey, Griff Rhys Jones, Andrew Motion, Alain de Botton, and Simon Schama.
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In 2009, James Runcie was appointed Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival.
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James Runcie left the post in 2013 to take up a position as Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre in London.
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From October 2006 to October 2007, James Runcie spent a year filming JK Rowling: A Year in the Life for ITV, as the author was completing the final novel in the Harry Potter cycle, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
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James Runcie narrated the film; when it was shown in the United States, additional commentary was provided by Elizabeth Vargas.
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James Runcie won a Royal Television Society award for his film Miss Pym's Day Out in 1992, starring Patricia Routledge as the novelist Barbara Pym, and he has received Royal Television Society nominations for How Buildings Learn and The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.
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In 1985 James Runcie married the theatre director and radio drama producer Marilyn Imrie, who died in 2020.