The screenplay of Poliakoff's award-winning BBC drama about the forgotten son of King George V and Queen Mary The Lost Prince follows the life and times of Prince John, the forgotten youngest son of King George V and Queen Mary, who was born in 1905. Although remembered as a charming boy, he was diagnosed as epileptic and suffering from learning difficulties similar to autism and shut away at the age of twelve at the in Wood Farm near Sandringham to prevent the family from public embarrassment. He died there when he was just thirteen. Dramatising the historical facts, Poliakoff portrays with extraordinary sensitivity, a child's experience of the Royal Family in the late Edwardian period and during the First World War. Set against a backdrop of unprecedented upheaval in Britain, The Lost Prince tells the very human story of a unique family and an extraordinary boy. Published to tie in with the BBC's production, broadcast in two feature-length instalments in January 2003, The Lost Prince stars Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Gina McKee, Tom Hollander, John Sessions, Billy Nighy and Bibi Andersson.
Stephen Poliakoff, born in December 1952, was appointed writer-in-residence at the National Theatre for 1976 and the same year won the Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award for Hitting Town and City Sugar. In 1980 Poliakoff won a BAFTA Award for the Best Single Play for Caught on a Train, the Evening Standard's Best British Film Award for Close My Eyes in 1992, the Critics' Circle Best Play Award for Blinded by the Sun in 1996 and the Prix Italia and the Royal Television Society Best Drama Award for Shooting the Past in 1999. His plays and films include Clever Soldiers (1974), The Carnation Gang (1974), Hitting Town (1975), City Sugar (1975), Heroes (1975), Strawberry Fields (1977), Stronger than the Sun (1977), Shout Across the River (1978), American Days (1979), The Summer Party (1980), Bloody Kids (1980), Caught on a Train (1980), Favourite Nights (1981), Soft Targets (1982), Runners (1983), Breaking the Silence (1984), Coming in to Land (1987), Hidden City (1988), She's Been Away (1989), Playing with Trains (1989), Close My Eyes (1991), Sienna Red (1992), Century (1994), Sweet Panic (1996), Blinded by the Sun (1996), The Tribe (1997), Food of Love (1998), Talk of the City (1998), Remember This (1999), Shooting the Past (1999), Perfect Strangers (2001), for which he won the Dennis Potter Award at the 2002 BAFTAs and Best Writer and Best Drama at the Royal Television Society Awards, and The Lost Prince (2003), winner of three Emmy Awards in 2005, including Outstanding Mini Series. His work for the BBC includes Friends and Crocodiles (2006) and Gideon's Daughter (also 2006), which won two Golden Globes and a Peabody Award in 2007, Joe’s Palace (2007) and Capturing Mary (2007), which was Emmy-nominated and won a BAFTA.
More recently, Stephen released the feature film Glorious ’39 (2010) with BBC Films. Stephen’s latest stage play My City premiered at the Almeida Theatre in 2011 and his BBC television series Dancing On The Edge (2013) achieved international acclaim, winning a Golden Globe. His latest television series, Close To The Enemy premiered in 2016 on BBC Two.
