Production

Graham Benson - Executive Producer

Graham Benson joined TVS as Controller of Drama in 1987 and has been involved in film and television production for more than twenty-five years.  He produced the television series Fox, Mike Leigh’s Meantime and was chairman of BAFTA between 1985 and 1987.  In 1992 he founded Blue Heaven Productions with his wife Christine as the managing director and in 2003 Southampton Institute made him an Honorary Doctor of Letters.

Neil Zeiger - Series Producer

Neil Zeiger began his career in 1973 as Deputy Stage Manager at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. He worked as an Assistant Floor Manager with the BBC in London and became a drama producer, establishing a new drama unit for BBC Northern Ireland. In 1980, he produced Too Late to Talk to Billy, a drama starring Kenneth Branagh in his first television role.

Neil left the BBC to form Flickers Productions where he produced Lamb, an award winning film starring Liam Neeson. In 1987 he became series producer for The Ruth Rendell Mysteries and in 1992 joined Graham Benson at Blue Heaven Productions. Recent work includes: The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (Canada 1998), Peak Practice (ITV 2001) and Rockface (BBC 2003).

In 2004 Neil was appointed executive producer for television at Portman Film and Television: “My job is to boost the TV presence of Portman by enabling more writers, more individual producers and more production companies to use our distribution machine. I believe this is an exciting time. Television is evolving at a rate of knots and I think the creative and marketing skills we offer at Portman present a unique opportunity. The film side of the business delivers quality drama, so my focus will be on high-end television drama series.”