Jonathan Melville

Hello! I am Jonathan Melville, an Edinburgh-based writer, and I have written four non-fiction books about films and television series that I love: Seeking Perfection: The Unofficial Guide to Tremors, A Kind of Magic: Making the Original Highlander, Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic, Hamish Macbeth: The Making of a BBCtv Classic, as well as the forthcoming Rainbow Connections: Volume One - Meeting the People Who Brought Jim Henson’s Vision to Life. As a film and television fan, I wanted to write books about subjects I couldn’t easily read about elsewhere. In 2015, I published my first book, a look back at 25 years of the Tremors franchise — an unofficial book featuring interviews with more than 50 people involved in the first four films and the TV series. This was followed in 2020 by my take on the 35th anniversary of the 1986 film Highlander. For that book, I spoke with dozens of contributors, including the stars Christopher Lambert and Clancy Brown, as well as Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor. In 2022, I published my third book about the making of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero, speaking with the cast and crew about this Scottish classic — actors such as Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson, and Jennifer Black told me about their time on set, while I also discussed the making of the film with many contributors, including writer/director Bill Forsyth. In 2025, I published my fourth book, Hamish Macbeth: The Making of a BBCtv Classic, which takes readers back to the 1990s and the making of one of Scotland’s strangest television series — a blend of The X-Files and Northern Exposure set in a tiny Scottish village. Next up is a book of interviews with creators who worked with Jim Henson on his various projects. At the same time, I have several other writing projects at different stages of completion, and I have also started writing a little fiction.