- Simon Allen is a British Screenwriter/Producer. Simon Allen's television credits include include writing and producing on Apple's Emmy-winning spy thriller Tehran (2020), Executive Producing Netflix and James Wan supernatural anthology True Haunting (2025), creating BBC America's RTS winning punk rock queer fantasy comedy The Watch (2020) (described by SFX Magazine as a 'gleeful 21st century remix', TV critic Matt Roush as 'the craziest, most enjoyable series since AMC's Preacher ended' and The LA Times as 'a colorful, energetic treat'), writing and producing on Sky's Das Boot (2018) and show running BBC One's international hit The Musketeers (2014).
Simon Allen's film credits include writing and Executive Producing Netflix original horror Choose or Die (2022) which went to Number One worldwide and was one of Variety's best horror films of the year. With director Toby Meakins, Simon Allen created horror shorts Breathe (2013) for the BFI Gothic Season, Molins Film Festival winning Lot254 (2012) and the Cannes Lion-winning horror Floor 9.5 (2017) for FX which stars Georgina Campbell of Barbarian (2022).
- IMDb mini biography by: HJA
- He has used Wham! tracks as key plot points more than once (Club Tropicana in New Tricks: The Queen's Speech and Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go in The Watch: Twilight Canyons).
- He left an abusive home when he was 11 years old and didn't become a professional screenwriter until he was in his 30s.
- He is a fan of the English ghost story writer M.R. James.
- He landed his first writing break on a CBBC show called M.I. High.
- Tried to get Duran Duran onto the soundtrack of Choose or Die (2022) but director Toby Meakins overruled him.
- I would want people to take hope in the face of helplessness from it, to take the idea that you can do more than just stand by and watch, that even when everything is rigged against you -- hardwired against you -- you can actually transcend that and defeat it
- My advice would be - anything is possible so don't despair. I left an abusive home at eleven years old and nobody was especially optimistic about my prospects
- I feel that we could do with a little more joy in the world right now
- I didn't see the inside of a theatre until I was thirty five
- As somebody who left an abusive home at 11 years old and struggled for safety and validity, I always found refuge in the extraordinarily brave and marginalized characters of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. The feelings of hope and the determination to overcome helplessness that Sam, Sybil, Cheery, Angua and Carrot inspired in me are very much present in The Watch.
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