NIK POWELL

Written by Michael Darvell
 

(4 November 1950 - 7 November 2019)

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Film producer and one-time record executive Nik Powell, who has died of cancer at the age of 69, surfaced at a time when the British film industry really needed him. He created Palace Pictures which produced many high-profile films and furthered the careers of directors Mike Leigh, Peter Greenaway and Neil Jordan, etc. Early on he knew Richard Branson and they went into business together, trying to market, of all things, the breeding of budgies and growing fir trees for Christmas. After these failures, Branson and Powell launched Student magazine, but following a falling out, Powell then joined Branson in a mail order record company called Slipped Disc, with shops around London. He then co-founded Virgin Records with Branson and from their first release, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, the company was a huge success. In 1983, Powell parted from Virgin to create Palace Pictures with Stephen Woolley who ran the Scala independent cinema in Bloomsbury and later in King’s Cross. Together they produced some of the most interesting British films of the 1980s and ’90s including The Company of Wolves, Absolute Beginners, Mona Lisa, High Spirits, Scandal, Red, Hot and Blue, The Pope Must Die and The Crying Game among many others. When Palace went out of business, Powell continued as a producer with Scala Productions, releasing Backbeat, The Neon Bible, Fever Pitch, Little Voice, Last Orders, Ladies in Lavender, Brimstone, and many others. Willow, made in Macedonia, is due to be released soon, while A Gentleman’s War, Scott Hicks’ film about Douglas Jardine and the 1930s cricket bodyline scandal, is in pre-production. From 2003 to 2017, Nik Powell was the director of the National Film and Television School. His first wife was Merrill Tomassi, Richard Branson’s sister-in-law and, following their divorce, he married the singer Sandie Shaw in 1982. They have two children, Amie and Jack, and divorced in 1995. Nik Powell received the OBE for his services to the music, film and television industries in 2018.

MICHAEL DARVELL

 
Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

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