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Joe Ahearne is an Irishtelevisionwriter anddirector, best known for his work on several fantasy and science fiction based programmes includingUltraviolet,Apparitions andDoctor Who. He also wrote the screenplay for 2013 feature filmTrance.
Ahearne's career began when the short filmLatin for a Dark Room won an award at theEdinburgh Festival in 1994, and shortly afterwards he began working for the independent television production companyWorld Productions. Among his work for World were episodes of the 1997 series theBBC Two dramaThis Life, for which Ahearne wrote two and directed another three episodes, making him the only person to both write and direct episodes for the series.
His next major production for World was the six-episodeChannel Fourvampire seriesUltraviolet, which Ahearne both wrote and directed.Ultraviolet was broadcast in 1998 to critical acclaim, and has subsequently been released on bothVHS and DVD. The series also ran on theSci-Fi Channel in the United States, and theFox Network in that country produced a pilot for their own version in 2001, although this did not lead to a series.
In 2002 Ahearne directed the pilot for the Big Bear Productions horror-fantasy dramaStrange, written byAndrew Marshall and broadcast onBBC One. The pilot was successful enough for a series to be commissioned the following year, with Ahearne helming three of the six episodes, although the series was not a success and a second series did not follow.
Ahearne both wrote and directed the two-part drama-documentary seriesSpace Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets for the BBC and theDiscovery Channel in 2004. He was the director of five episodes of the 2005 series of the BBC'sDoctor Who, for which Ahearne was nominated for his firstBAFTA.
In December 2006 his dramaPerfect Parents, starringDoctor Who leadChristopher Eccleston, was aired on ITV1.[1] The following month Ahearne returned toThis Life to direct the one-off reunion episode "This Life +10", shown onBBC Two on 2 January 2007.
Ahearne's projectApparitions, a supernatural series for the BBC which he wrote and directed, began on BBC One in November 2008.
Ahearne also worked onDa Vinci's Demons, a fictional adventure TV-series created byDavid S. Goyer forStarz andBBC Worldwide.[2] He also wrote the four-issueFantastic Force mini-series forMarvel Comics in 2009 andFantastic Four Annual 32 in 2010.
In 2013, Ahearne co-wrote the screenplay forTrance, a 2013 psychological thriller directed byDanny Boyle starringJames McAvoy, which was partially a remake of Ahearne's own version of the story, made for British television in 2001. He had sent the script to Boyle in 1994 after the release ofShallow Grave. Boyle never forgot it and over a decade later contacted Ahearne with the intention of making a feature film. It went on to receive mostly positive reviews.[3]
In 2017 Ahearne wrote and directed the BBC One thriller mini-seriesThe Replacement. The series consisted of three episodes and concluded with loose ends. Ahearne did not intend to continue the series as he preferred short series.[4] His next project was his the "gay thriller"B&B, produced by Hummingbird Films and starringDoctor Who actorPaul McGann.B&B premiered at the 2017 London Independent Film Festival, at which it was named the Best LGBT Picture. It played at numerous other festivals and received a limited theatrical release in North America.[5]
In 2017, Ahearne was announced as writer, director, and executive producer for the anthology seriesRendlesham, based ona UFO sighting in Rendlesham in 1980.[6] The series was to starLaurence Fishburne, also serving as executive producer.[7] As of December 2023 the series is still yet to materialise.
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