Manners McDade’s Simon Russell Scores Brexit Documentary 'Inside Europe: 10 Years of Turmoil'

Manners McDade composer Simon Russel recently scored the BBC's Brexit documentary 'Inside Europe: 10 Years of Turmoil'.

The three-part documentary series aims to convey the origins of Brexit, as well as the battle to hold the European Union together, featuring contributions from presidents, prime ministers and their closest advisers. The first episode focuses on how the Conservative Party’s fixation with Europe pushed David Cameron to call the referendum on Brexit and individual key players’ perspectives on Cameron’s negotiations with EU leaders.

Simon Russell is a London-based, award-winning composer, known for his work using found sounds, sampling and electronics. In 2009, Simon scored Havana Marking’s documentary feature, Afghan Star that went on to claim two Sundance awards, The Grierson Award 2009, and a Prix Italia. In the same year, Simon scored From St Peter’s To St Paul’s, that won the RTS Award for Best Arts Documentary. He has also scored Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer which won a Sundance Award and the Best Documentary prize at the British Independent Film Awards in 2013.

Simon Russell, composer

Other notable documentary works include We Are Many (directed Amir Amirani), about the demonstrations against the Iraq war in 2003, (a score for which Simon collaborated with Alex Baranowski), Smash & Grab (directed by Havana Marking), an innovative documentary about the notorious diamond thieves, the Pink Panthers; Vote Afghanistan! (directed Martin Herring & Havana Marking), about the country’s first free elections in 2009; a number of series fronted by Waldemar Januzczak, including The Dark Ages – An Age Of Light, a 4-part series looking at art and architecture in the Middle Ages, and the 4-part Renaissance Unchained, both for BBC4, and 52 episodes of the animated show Canimals, for Aardman.

Most recently he was worked on projects such as James Bluemel's remarkable BBC documentary series Exodus: Our Journey to Europe (Which was awarded two BAFTA's, RTS Best Documentary Series 2017 & Prix Italia 2016) and Exodus: Our Journey Continues. Simon also worked on ITV’s three-part series; Joanna Lumley’s India, in 2017. 

Inside Europe: 10 Years of Turmoil airs Monday 28th January, 9pm, BBC TWO.