Brian Joseph Cosgrove (born 6 April 1934) is an English animator, designer, director, producer and sculptor. With Mark Hall, he founded Cosgrove Hall Films in 1976 and produced successful animated children shows including The Wind in the Willows, Danger Mouse and Count Duckula. In 2012, he won the BAFTA Special Award.

Early life

Born in Manchester, Cosgrove studied at Manchester College of Art and Design. It was there he met his future work partner Mark Hall.

Career

Cosgrove started his career by producing television graphics at Granada Television. He later joined Stop Frame Productions, which his partner at Granada Television, Mark Hall founded, where he worked on many public service films, commercials for companies like TVTimes and directed and produced animated shows such as The Magic Ball and Sally And Jake. After Stop Frame Productions was shut down, Cosgrove and Hall founded Cosgrove Hall Films, where they produced some of the most well known animated children's shows and films in Britain, such as Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, The Wind in the Willows (which would later become a 52 episode TV series), Noddy's Toyland Adventures, Bill and Ben and Fifi and the Flowertots until 2009. In 1989, Cosgrove directed and produced the animated feature film The BFG, based on the Roald Dahl novel of the same name. According to Cosgrove, this is one of the only adaptations, based on one of Roald Dahl's novels, that Dahl himself actually liked. "When we finished, we ran a screening in Soho, and Dahl and his family came along. They were sitting at the back, and when the film finished they stood up and applauded. He could be quite vocal, Dahl, if he didn't like something. He didn't like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at all, the 1971 Gene Wilder one. So it was a real relief that he liked our film." Since 2011, Cosgrove has been the creator and executive producer of Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick Entertainment.

Personal life

Cosgrove is good friends with actor Sir David Jason, who has been a loyal collaborator on most of his projects.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations