Debbie Wiseman
One of the UK’s most successful female music ambassadors, Debbie is in demand as a composer and conductor.

Throughout the past 20 years, there are probably few people in the UK who have not heard a theme from one of Debbie’s films or television productions. Whether it is watching Stephen Fry bring to life Oscar Wilde for the big screen, hearing the latest political commentary on a Sunday morning with Andrew Marr, or revelling in the Tudor world of Thomas Cromwell in “Wolf Hall”, Wiseman has gifted us iconic themes of beauty and passion, love and laughter.

Her credits, over 200 of them, for the big and small screen, include WOLF HALL, EDIE, THE WHALE, FLOOD, WARRIORS, JUDGE JOHN DEED, WILDE, HAUNTED, OTHELLO, LAND GIRLS, JOANNA LUMLEY’S NILE, TOM & VIV, JEKYLL, THE INSPECTOR LYNLEY MYSTERIES, THE PASSION, THE GUILTY, BEFORE YOU GO, ARSENE LUPIN, HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT, TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN, LOST CHRISTMAS, STEPHEN FRY IN AMERICA, WPC 56, THE PROMISE, A POET IN NEW YORK, THE ANDREW MARR SHOW, FATHER BROWN, THE CORONER, SHAKESPEARE AND HATHAWAY and DICKENSIAN.

Debbie has been nominated for two Ivor Novello Awards for WILDE and DEATH OF YUGOSLAVIA, and has won a TRIC Award for THE GOOD GUYS and an RTS Award for WARRIORS. She has been awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. In March 2016 she was awarded the Best Composer, Drama award for WOLF HALL at the RTS West Awards.

Debbie is a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music, and regularly gives masterclasses to schools and colleges about the art of composing music for picture. She has composed a new “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” called “Different Voices”, and the work is now frequently performed by school and youth orchestras across the country. Her album of music to accompany the fairy stories of Oscar Wilde – WILDE STORIES, on the Warner Classics and Jazz label – was nominated for a Grammy Award and was then made into a trilogy of animated films for Channel 4.

In Classic FM’s Top 100 Movie Music Chart, Debbie’s score for WILDE is regularly voted into the top 40 by the station’s listeners. A suite of her music from the film was included in the Great British Film Music Prom concert at the Albert Hall.

As well as her composing work, Debbie appears in concert halls across the country conducting her film scores, and has been a regular guest conductor at the Royal Albert Hall’s annual Filmharmonic concert as well as appearing at the 2014 Cordoba International Cinema Music Festival, becoming the first female conductor in the history of the event . She has also appeared as an expert guest on the BBC broadcasts of The Proms.

Debbie is a regular presence on Radio 3 and 4. She presented a Radio 4 programme on the composer Joseph Horovitz, and in 2013 Debbie presented Scoring Father Brown for Radio 4, which followed her process of composing the score for the BBC TV series. In October 2014 Debbie was Kirsty Young’s guest on Desert Island Discs, and in March 2015 Debbie presented Same Tune, Different Song on Radio 4, as well as a two-hour special of her favourite music on Radio 3’s Saturday Classics.

In 2004 Debbie was honoured in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list with an MBE for services to the music and film industry. She was awarded Honorary Fellowships at both colleges where she studied, Trinity College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Sussex.

The CD album of Debbie’s original score for the acclaimed BBC series, Wolf Hall, entered the UK’s Classic FM chart at Number 1.

Debbie was one of 11 composers chosen to compose music for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant on June 3rd 2012 when she conducted her movement of “New Water Music” on The Georgian barge. She was commissioned to compose the Overture and Finale music for the Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration in May 2016.

Debbie composed new signature music for Viking Cruises and in March 2017 was honoured to be appointed godmother to Viking Cruise’s new river ship – Viking Herja.

Debbie is Classic FM’s Composer in Residence and her latest album “The Glorious Garden”, a collaboration with Alan Titchmarsh, topped the UK Classical Chart for three weeks.

In the Queen’s Birthday Honour’s list, June 2018 Debbie Wiseman was awarded the OBE for services to music.

In 2021, Debbie became the most popular living British composer for the first time in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame with four entries, Wilde, Wolf Hall, The Mythos Suite and The Glorious Garden.

Helen Mirren
is one of the best known and most respected actresses with an international career that spans stage, screen and television and has won many awards for her powerful and versatile performances, including the Academy Award in 2007 for her performance in The Queen.

Theatre – Helen began her career playing Cleopatra with the National Youth Theatre. She then appeared in rep in Manchester and from there she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. After four notable years at the RSC Helen took a complete change of direction, when she went to work with renowned director Peter Brook’s theatre company Centre de Recherche Théâtral and toured Africa and America. Since then her theatre work has spanned numerous productions in the West End, the Fringe, the RSC, the National Theatre and Broadway in the US including A Month in the Country, for which she received a Tony nomination and The Dance of Death on Broadway opposite Ian McKellan. Subsequent productions include Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse and Mourning Becomes Electra at the National Theatre for which she was nominated for an Olivier Best Actress Award. She returned to the National Theatre in 2009 in the title role of Racine’s Phèdre directed by Nicholas Hytner. This made history when it became the first theatre production to be filmed for NTLive and seen in cinemas throughout the world. In her most recent performance in 2013 in London’s West End, she reprised her role of Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Daldry. She won an Olivier Award and a What’s On Stage award for Best Actress. In February 2015 The Audience transferred to the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, New York with Helen Mirren still in the title role, for which she won the Tony Awards for Best Actress.

Film – Helen’s film career began with Michael Powell’s Age of Consent and other early work included Caligula, but her breakthrough role came in John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday. Helen continued to make films throughout the 80s including Excaliber, Cal (Best Actress award at Cannes Film Festival), White Nights (directed by Taylor Hackford, her husband), Mosquito Coast and in 1989 Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. She earned her first Academy Award nomination for her performance as Queen Charlotte inThe Madness of King George and her second for her role as the housekeeper in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park. Helen’s most celebrated role was as Elizabeth II in Stephen Frear’s The Queen for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and numerous other awards throughout the world. In recent years she has starred in Calendar Girls, The Clearing, Shadowboxer, State of Play, The Last Station (for which she received another Best Actress Academy Award nomination together with a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Countess Sofya Tolstoy), Love Ranch (directed by Taylor Hackford), The Tempest, Red, Arthur, Brighton Rock and The Debt. 2013 saw the release of Hitchcock where Helen played Hitchcock’s wife Alma Reville to Anthony Hopkins Hitchcock (her performance was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA). She reprised her role as the retired British spy Victoria in RED2 with Bruce Willis and John Malkovich and voiced the character Dean Hardscrabble for Disney/Pixar’s Monster’s University. In 2014 Helen starred in The Hundred-Foot Journey, directed by Lasse Hallstrom where she played a French restauranteur. In 2015 she starred with Ryan Reynolds in Woman In Gold, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe and a SAG award. The film was based on the true story of Maria Altmann and her struggle to get back her family’s painting looted by the Nazis. Helen then played Hedda Hopper alongside Bryan Cranston in Trumbo directed by Jay Roach for which she was nominated for both a Golden Globe and SAG award. 2018 saw the release of Winchester, a ghost story based on true events, co-starring Jason Clarke, The Leisure Seeker with Donald Sutherland, The Nutcracker And The Four Realms, Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw and Lionsgate’s Anna. Helen was then seen in Saban Films’ Berlin: I Love You, following that she starred with Ian McKellen in The Good Liar and then the voice of the narrator in the documentary Anne Frank: Parallel Stories. Most recently she voiced the character of Snickers in Disney’s The One And Only Ivan. Helen’s most recent film projects can be found under Current Projects on this site.

Television – Helen’s first leading role in television was as Cousin Bette for the BBC in the 70’s Other BBC work at that time included The Changeling, The Philanthropist and the outstanding 1979 production of Denis Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills. However it was in the award-winning series Prime Suspect as DCI Jane Tennison that Helen became a household name in television. Written by Lynda La Plante as a single TV drama it spawned another 4 series in the 90s. Helen reprised the role in 2003 and the final Prime Suspect was released in 2006, bringing this iconic role to its conclusion and for which she won an Emmy for Best Actress. During the ‘intermission’ from Prime Suspect Helen starred in a number of award winning US TV productions including Losing Chase, Ayn Rand and The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone. Her performance in the television role in Elizabeth I won her an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Best Actress. Her most recent television role was in David Mamet’s Phil Spector for HBO Films where she starred alongside Al Pacino as Spector’s lawyer Linda Kenney Baden. For this role she won a SAG award for Best Actress and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Helen’s latest television project is Catherine The Great for SKY/HBO due for broadcast later in 2019, please see Current Projects for more information.