Creators - About Mr Bean - Mr Bean

Educated at Newcastle and Oxford Universities, Rowan Atkinson first attracted wide critical notice at the Edinburgh Festival in 1977. His first foray into television was as a founding member of the 'Not the Nine O'clock News' team - the International Emmy and British Academy Award winning series for the BBC.

In 1981 Rowan became the youngest performer to have a one-man show in London's West End - the sell-out season at the Globe Theatre won him the Society of West End Theatre's Award for Comedy Performance of the Year. In 1983 Rowan embarked with writer Richard Curtis on their situation tragedy 'Blackadder' for the BBC. Over the ensuing five years the four series won three British Academy Awards, an International Emmy, three ACE awards and personal awards for Rowan's performance, including Best Entertainment Performance. Once again Rowan was voted BBC Personality of the Year.

Rowan's most famous character, Mr Bean first emerged from his stage shows in the 1980's. Collaborating with Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll, Mr Bean was developed into a television series in 1990, the most successful television series of the decade. Mr Bean has also been transformed into an animated series and two feature films which Rowan co-produced - Bean the Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997) and Mr Bean's Holiday (2007).

Rowan has appeared in a number of highly successful documentary programmes on subjects ranging from comedy to the motor car (his passion) and was the lead role in the two series of Tiger Aspect's number one rating, situation comedy The Thin Blue Line (1995-1996) . His film credits include Never Say Never Again, The Tall Guy, The Witches, Hot Shots - Part Deux, Four Weddings and a Funeral , the voice of Zazu in The Lion King, Johnny English, Love Actually (directed by Richard Curtis) and Keeping Mum, opposite Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Tiger Aspect Productions is internationally recognised as one of the UK's most successful and prolific independent television producers. The company portfolio includes animation, comedy, drama, entertainment and factual genres.

Tiger creates a wide range of critically acclaimed and awared-winning programming for all the UK's major terrestrial and non-terrestrial broadcasters. In addition the company's creative output now enjoys an increasingly high profile in the USA through its commissions for major stateside networks.

Tiger's production slate includes primetime mainstream successes for BBC1 and ITV such as Robin Hood (3 series), Murphy's Law (4 series), Mr Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, Benidorm, The Catherine Tate Show, Harry Enfield and Charlie and Lola (www.charlieandlola.com).

Other hits have included Ross Kemp In Afghanistan (a follow-up to the BAFTA-winning Ross Kemp On Gangs for Sky One), Vanity Lair for T4, Bedroom Diaries for MTV, Horne and Corden for BBC 3 and Abi Morgan’s drama White Girl for BBC2.

Robin co-wrote the television series Mr Bean starring Rowan Atkinson for Thames Television alongside Richard Curtis and co-wrote the film 'Mr Bean The Ultimate Disaster Movie'.

He is a writer, performer and co-founder of the Cliffhanger Theatre Company. His productions with them include, James Bond which toured Britain, Europe and Australia, Gymslip Vicar and The World of Les and Robert which was nominated for the 1989 Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival.

Richard Curtis was born in New Zealand in 1956 and raised in the Phillippines, Sweden and the UK. He has now lived in London off and on for over 20 years. He began writing comedy after leaving Oxford University in 1978. He had worked with Rowan Atkinson there-and continued to do so. His first job on television was writing for all four series of Not the Nine O'Clock News for the BBC. He then went on to write the Blackadder series, a situation comedy set in four different eras of British history, always starring Rowan Atkinson in a different amusing haircut. The last three series were co-written with Ben Elton.

During these years, Richard, Rowan and Ben staged two comedy revues in London's West End and Richard wrote his first film, The Tall Guy.

Back on television, Richard and Rowan then began work on Mr. Bean, and continued for some years to make intermittent programmes starring the man in the tie who says very little. In December 1993, Richard was awarded the Writers Guild of Great Britain Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award.

His second film, Four Weddings and a Funeral won a French Cesar, an Australian Academy Award and the BAFTA for Best Film.

In 1994, Richard was made an MBE. The movie Bean, co-written with Robin Driscoll, directed by Mel Smith and starring Rowan Atkinson opened in Britain at the end of August 1997. It is about Mr. Bean's visit to America and has more dialogue in it than you would expect.

His other films include Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, The Girl In The Cafe - a television drama and The Boat That Rocked.

Richard Curtis is co-founder and vice-chairman of Comic Relief, the organisation which runs Red Nose Day and Sport Relief in Britain. He began the charity after a trip to Ethiopia during the famine of 1985. Comic Relief has made over £500,000,000 for charity projects in Africa and the U.K. Richard was also a founding member of the Make Poverty History coalition.

He is not married to Emma Freud and they have a daughter, Scarlett, and three sons, Jake, Charlie and Spike. In 2000, he was made a CBE. In 2007 he was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship.

Howard Goodall was trained as a chorister at New College, Oxford, and later as a music scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a First in Music.

Howard composed the music and theme tune of the original live action series of Mr Bean as well as the score for the film Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997). Other TV scores and themes include Blackadder, Red Dwarf, The Vicar of Dibley, The Borrowers, 2.4 Children and The Thin Blue Line. Howard has been responsible for the music of all Rowan Atkinson's stage and television work for the last 20 years.