Alan de Pellette is an experienced, collaborative and meticulous director with wide ranging credits in TV, film and radio. He brings class diversity to a team as he is proud to come from a working-class background in a council estate in the east end of Glasgow and can inspire a diverse range of talent to deliver gritty, funny and emotional stories, with performances and images that resonate with audiences.
He hustled his way to a career in radio and created the long running BBC Scottish comedy, OFF THE BALL, via his own successful indie, before moving into TV and a range of comedies for BBC Two, Three and BBC Scotland, including the award winning CHEWIN’ THE FAT and the critically acclaimed OVERNITE EXPRESS & SHREDDED WEEK. Alan then moved on to pursue his passion for directing television drama.
Alan was selected for the prestigious Directors UK Inspire programme 2025, working with director Richard Signy, as Alan focuses more on longer form drama.
Alan has directed continuing drama including EASTENDERS for the BBC, with ‘The Six’ Christmas thriller and the multi award winning ‘Loving and Losing Lola’ storyline, ITV’s EMMERDALE and HOLLYOAKS for Lime Pictures/Channel 4. He has directed multi award winning storylines on coercive control, racist grooming and conversion therapy.
He is also passionate about young people’s television and in 2020/21 Alan set the creative vision and introduced an exciting diverse cast to the first series of the live action children’s television series of Julia Donaldson’s PRINCESS MIRROR BELLE for BBC Children’s Productions in Glasgow. He then directed two of the CBBC SNAPS drama series broadcast in April 2021 and on iPlayer, depicting snapshots of life as a UK kid. Alan has directed numerous single dramas, including MYSTIQUE NO 375, a children’s drama for the BBC that screened in 15 countries around Europe during 2017 and 2018.
As well as moving into drama, Alan has made several documentaries for the BBC, including SCOTLAND’S GAME CHANGERS, which was nominated for both an RTS and Celtic Media Award in 2018. He is interested in bringing stories based on big true life narratives to the screen through fiction, including MURDERED BY THE STATE currently being developed as a high end feature length docudrama for cinema and TV (produced by Two Rivers Media, written by Paul Walker, with interest declared from Screen Scotland).
He has numerous film credits as a writer/director. His first short, THE AFICIONADO, was part of the UK Film Council scheme, ‘8½’, under patron Peter Mullan. It screened in festivals around the world and is shown regularly on TV across Europe by Mini Movie Channel. He has made 4 other successful short films, including a 45’ portmanteau of connected stories, DECLARATIONS, inspired by the 60th anniversary of the UN Declarations of Human Rights. It premiered at the 2009 New York Independent Film Festival, where Alan won Best International Director. In 2016, his micro budget feature film, ELEMENTAL, was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in their Works in Progress selection.
Watch Alan de Pellette’s showreel below.
