Last updated at 12:23, Monday, 11 June 2012

Melvyn Bragg and Roxanne Pallett aren’t Cumbria’s only gifts to the world of television. Don’t forget Neil Marshall.

Neil Marshall

Neil, who lived in Carlisle and Dalston, is the filmmaker behind Centurion, Dog Soldiers and The Descent and has been chosen to make an episode for the new series of mediaeval fantasy Game Of Thrones. Neil’s episode is called Blackwater.

Game Of Thrones is made by HBO, the US production responsible for high-quality TV such as The Sopranos, The Wire and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Couldn’t Neil have persuaded them to let him to work closer to home? After all Cumbria has been the setting for many a film and TV series.

It’s not just Snow White And the Huntsman. Our stunning scenery was a bigger star than either Renee Zellweger or Ewan McGregor in the 2007 biopic Miss Potter.

There was Jimmy McGovern’s series The Lakes, set and filmed in Patterdale and Glenridding. And many of the townspeople of Alston are stars of the small screen. In 1999 an ITV adaptation of Oliver Twist was filmed there and almost all the extras were locals.

But there’s a much more decisive factor than any of these. The music rights for Bagpuss are held by Fellside Recordings in Workington. Reiver rests his case.

First published at 11:27, Monday, 11 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk