Professor Anthony Lilley OBE, FRSA, MA (Hons) (Oxon)

Professor Anthony Lilley

Lay Member of Council

Contact details

Biography

Anthony Lilley OBE is a co-founder with John Berry CBE of Scenario Two Ltd, a UK commercial theatre producing business. With Scenario Two, he has produced Terry Gilliam and Leah Hausmann's revival of Sondheim and Lapine's Into the Woods, high tech, genre-busting sensation, Cages at Riverside Studios winning an Offie Award in 2022 and an international tour of The Light in the Piazza starring Renée Fleming.

Previously, he has worked extensively across the creative industries, beginning in theatre before founding Magic Lantern Productions, one of the UK’s earliest specialist digital content companies.

At Magic Lantern, he produced TV, web, mobile, theatre, games and advertising projects including working with brands such as Top Gear and Doctor Who and for clients including BBC, C4, Sony Playstation, CCTV China and ABC.  He has won BAFTA, RTS and Peabody awards in the field of digital innovation.

Anthony is chair of the Board of virtual production facility Studio Ulster Ltd and Senior Advisor to placemaking specialists, Time and Space. He is a member of the board of UK Theatre and also chairs international artists group, Blast Theory.  

Previously he has held Board level seats at UK regulators OfCOM and the Gambling Commission and at various cultural organisations including English National Opera, Lighthouse and the Crafts Council.  He served two terms as a trustee of NESTA where he also chaired the Investment Committee. He has advised the UK government at ministerial level and given keynote speeches on five continents.

Anthony graduated with an MA in Law from the University of Oxford. He holds a personal Professorship in Creative Industries at Ulster University and was a Council Member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council until March 2023, where he was instrumental in establishing the £85m creative industries clusters programme (CICP). He holds an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Kent University and has previously held Visiting Professorships of Media at the Universities of Oxford and Bournemouth.

Anthony is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, a former new media correspondent of The Guardian and was appointed OBE in 2008 for services to media and the creative industries. Since 2015, he has coached grassroots football with Ringmer Rovers.