PETER KESSLER

Peter Kessler is a retired TV producer. He won the BAFTA comedy award for ‘The Mrs Merton Show’ (BBC1) as well as making award-winning history documentaries such as ‘I Met Adolf Eichmann’ (BBC2), and talk shows including the first series of ‘The Graham Norton Show’.

More recently Peter founded a State primary school in London, Eden Primary, and also taught English in secondary schools. He was awarded an MBE for services to education.

For twelve years Peter was the Chair of the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival, and he is the author of ‘The Complete Guide to Asterix’.

Peter is now based at Oxford University, where he has initiated research programmes in Comics Studies and Film Studies. In 2025 he created the university’s first dedicated comics library. He runs Magdalen Monday Movies, a free film club open to both the general public and university members. He also works as a theatre reviewer for both professional and student drama. In 2022 Peter set up an outreach programme for schools with no history of sending students to Oxford, bringing them to one of the colleges to perform Shakespeare plays.

Peter teaches woodturning, gives lectures on film history, builds furniture and enjoys mountain biking.