Jason Francis - Director

Jason hails from Cornwall and originally trained as an actor at the Guildford School of Acting. Before co-founding Premier he worked for six years as an actor, including stints in the West End and National tours of 'The Rivals' and 'The Mikado'.

For those six years he doubled a sporadic acting career with working as an Restaurant Manager for Pizza Hut UK Ltd, running restaurants with a combined annual turnover in excess of £3 million pounds.

Since forming Premier with Nick and Connie, Jason has co-written and produced all of their productions and shared the directing duties of all their shows with Nick. Jason also handles most of the technical design of the shows and particularly enjoys creating and pitching the Premier brand to the children's licensing industry.

Away from the office Jason enjoys writing, in 2001 he completed a play about sixties trail blazer 'Joe Orton' called ‘Gorilla in the Roses’ which was turned into a production and played at The Latchmere Theatre in Battersea for four weeks. He also is a director of The Academy Stage School, teaching performing arts to children from 3 to 17 years. The company currently has four branches across the south, with over 200 students.

Jason has directed many household names in seven major pantomimes all over the UK, he has also written three pantomime scripts.

April 2001 saw Jason run his first ever London Marathon for Diabetes UK, where he managed to beat Sir Steve Redgrave and raise over £2000, as a child he also represented his county at snooker and chess.

 

Nick George - Director

Nick’s background is as a performer, having started his career nearly 25 years ago working in London’s Covent Garden. Unfortunately, it was not the opera house, but the streets outside, so he soon decided to move in out of the cold. Following many successful years appearing as a speciality act and compere at holiday resorts around the UK, Nick toured as a comic in various productions, supporting many ‘name’ acts along the way.

As company manager, he oversaw the smooth running of numerous productions and has also directed over twenty major pantomimes, working alongside international soap stars together with some of the UK’s leading comics and variety artists. These include the legendary Spike Milligan and singer Nathalie Imbruglia.

In the mid nineties, Nick worked in the production department of Leisure Services Agency, one of the countries largest booking agencies. During his time there he was responsible for engaging numerous children’s television personalities to appear at live events at major holiday parks across the UK.

Since co founding Premeir Stage Productions Ltd, Nick has co produced all of their shows to date and is also responsible for directing many of them. These include such classic children’s brands as "Rupert Bear", "Mr Men & Little Miss", "Bananas in Pyjamas", "Brum", "Fifi & the Flowertots" and "The Tales of Peter Rabbit".

He has also co written all of Premier’s productions, and with the current vogue of celebrities providing the voices for children's television shows, Premier have endeavoured to carry this across into their theatre productions. Ant & Dec and Les Dennis have provided voices for Premier's 'Engie Bengy' scripts, Dave Benson Phillips and Chris Jarvis voiced their Dream Street characters for the live show, Jane Horrocks has provided the voice of Fifi Forget-Me-Not and most recently Murray Walker, Sir Stirling Moss & Peter Kay voiced Roary the Racing car.

With the children’s theatre market ever increasing, Nick is constantly working on formats, scripts and proposals for up coming productions, together with maintaining the integrity of the licensed shows they currently have touring.

Contact us for more information