--- name: "Robert Jones" canonical: "https://film.one/person/robert-jones" roles: ["Writer"] reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "writer" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-18T10:27:15.672919+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Robert Jones Writer. ## Details - **Work:** Writer - **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102869701, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0429145/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1244446 ## Fi1m on Robert Jones > Robert Jones writes television about how institutions actually work, from the police station to the Westminster pass office, and he is better at the texture of a working day than at the joke. *Party Animals* is the case in point. The people in a Robert Jones script are rarely running anything. In *Party Animals* (2007) they photocopy, draft parliamentary questions that will never be asked, learn which bar to be seen in and get shouted at by people five years older than themselves. The pager goes off at midnight and somebody junior has to answer it. Jones and his co-creator Ben Richards understood that the young in Westminster are paid in proximity, and that proximity is not money. It is a good idea for a series, and it is the idea that runs through most of what he has written. He learned the trade on *The Bill* in the 1990s, after trying prose, and then co-created *The Cops* (1998) with Jimmy Gardner and Anita Pandolfo, a series about uniformed police work that did not soften the job. That is one end of him. The other is lighter: he has written for *Ballykissangel*, and *Party Animals* was sold as a comedy. In between come the conspiracy thriller *Secret State* (2012), *Murder* (2012), which built a killing out of interwoven monologues from suspects, witnesses and officials, and *Danny Boy* (2021), a factual drama about the soldier Brian Wood and the Al-Sweady Inquiry. We have reviewed only *Party Animals*, so we will not pretend to a verdict on the rest, but the shape is plain: real institutions, real issues, several points of view at once. What works is the detail. In *Party Animals* the government office is anxious and the opposition office is hungry, and the two rhyme deliberately; Brian Grant, directing, follows people down corridors at a walk that is nearly a run, and the script gives them the right things to say on the way. We winced at the shouting, because we recognised it: the humiliation of being blamed by someone barely senior to you is exactly observed, and it stayed with us longer than any of the plotting. What does not work is the comedy. The series is listed as one and keeps forgetting to be funny, and the gap between the label and the thing is why we stopped short of recommending it warmly. Jones has said: "A lot of writers can’t stand any control or interference, but I love collaboration." It shows. His best-known credits are shared, with Richards, with Gardner, with the producer Kath Mattock on *The Cops* and *Buried*, and the strength of *Party Animals* is a strength of research and structure rather than of a single voice. Start with the Westminster series; if the texture of a working day interests you more than the punchline, he is your writer. ## Biography Robert Jones is a British television writer and series creator. He co-created the BBC political drama *Party Animals* (2007) and wrote episodes of *Secret State* (2012) and the television film *Danny Boy* (2021). Jones began his career writing for long-running series including *The Bill*. He co-created the police drama *The Cops* and has contributed to *The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency* (2009) and *Murder* (2012–2016), which he also created. He has received a BAFTA Award. *Sources: imdb.com, bafta.org.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Party Animals* (2007), Fi1m 63, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/party-animals.md) ## Complete filmography (16) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Summer Book* (2025), Writer - *Danny Boy* (2021), Writer - *The Strangers: Prey at Night* (2018), Producer - *The Man Who Invented Christmas* (2017), Executive Producer - *Murder: Lost Weekend* (2016), Writer - *Murder* (2016), series, Creator - *Secret State* (2012), series, Writer, Creator - *Lennon Naked* (2010), Writer - *The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency* (2009), series, Writer - *Party Animals* (2007), series, Creator — Fi1m 63, [page](https://film.one/tv/party-animals.md) - *Ahead of the Class* (2005), Adaptation - *The Murder Room* (2004), Screenplay - *Death in Holy Orders* (2003), series, Writer - *Buried* (2003), series, Writer, Creator - *The Cops* (1998), series, Writer - *Pie in the Sky* (1994), series, Writer --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/robert-jones