Having already been on the books at Tessa Sayle and Cecily Ware I have spent the last twenty years building up a body of professional writing work across a number of disciplines and am continually developing various formats for theatre and tv. Should you feel there might be anything of interest in it, then I’d be delighted!
Predominantly, I have a passion for theatre writing and my career was kicked started when I won a Fringe First at Edinburgh for a short play, “Bread n’ Butter Guns” – and I was approached by Tessa Sayle’s agency. The same play then went on the following year to win the Yorkshire TV award at the NSDF and was subsequently produced twice in London on the fringe circuit – Time Out’s Critics Choice one week and good notices in national press, too.
From that point, I was thrust into the glitzy world of TV soaps – as a trainee script editor on “Emmerdale” (“when the ‘Farm’ was still attached and the biggest storyline was changing a barrel at the Woolpack …). I then spent a brief period freelancing for TV soaps – an unhappy experience on “Crossroads” and a more alarming one on “Take The High Road”. Being English, I’m afraid, was not an asset.
In between I spent time writing adaptations for various small companies for Edinburgh, but then ran away to the US to escape family deaths and all of that. After a period of self-reflection, I got off my backside to come home. I went straight to Leeds University to study Theatre for my MA (I also have a BA in Theatre from Lancaster).
During this period, I wrote an ambitious stage play – “Queen With Rotting Teeth” which ran a small tour in the North East. A feisty piece based on the pencil drawings of Goya – for eight women. Also, “Morons & Cabbages” about Myra Hindley and Ian Brady which got a very mixed reaction from the West Yorkshire crowd, but still it was short-listed that year for the Yorkshire Playwrights award. With confidence brimming, I moved back to my old stamping ground – London. And thanks to the good efforts of Cecily Ware, landed a job – on a sex project – working for Lifetime Productions on the “Lovers’ Guide” series – mainly as a researcher and a bug eyed one at that! At Lifetime, I also researched many factual TV programmes – mainly for ITV – but my main achievement there was re-writing the script of Desmond Morris’ “Body Language At Work”, a co-production with the then Melrose Productions before they merged with Video Arts.
Tough times hit Lifetime, so myself and my former boss, set up a our own video company – Big Hand Productions Ltd. Andrew Stanway liked us so much at Lifetime that he commissioned us to write and research with him “Real Lives, Real Sex”. Our ‘pride and joy’ though was “Video Gold” which I co-wrote and produced – fronted by Janet Ellis and Gloria Hunniford for…Betterware. Then the company went bust when a client defaulted on a large sum of money.
To make ends meet, I started script reading – mainly for the National Theatre, The Kings Head, Yorkshire TV, The Arts Council (Bursary scheme) and Bill Kenwright. I even used to be a member of the WGGB and was part of the negotiating team for the TMA agreements.
Another opportunity presented itself, thankfully – but it was a lateral move. Writing scripts for telephone audiotext services. Beating off the competition, I won the approved rights from Lucasfilm to create a telephone service for the re-release of the original trilogy of “Star Wars” – which all had to be researched and thoroughly vetted back at the ‘Ranch’ – but eventually the service went live with Anthony Daniels, playing C-3PO (what else?). The same happened for developed services for “Star Trek” (the principals couldn’t afford Patrick Steward so a then little known John Culshaw did a pretty good impersonation of Captain Picard for me. Audio cassettes are available of both of these, but not the Dr. Who (with Colin Baker) nor tactical services for “The Fifth Element” and “James Bond” which I also created under approval.
I seemed to be pigeon-holed as the telephone king – so much so, on the back of Star Wars, I was flown to the US to meet Lynda and Peter Guber (ex- Mr. Sony) to discuss a similar service which I subsequently developed for self-help Guru, Deepak Chopra. But beneath it all, my real writing passion lurked.
To that end, I have just completed my first draft (101 pages) of a new play on John Donne, entitled “Reinvention” –a radically different take than would be normally expected. It took a year to research and much correspondence with academics, mainly in the US and Canada. In February this year, I presented the concept to the John Donne Society in Baton Rouge (near New Orleans). This play is for Reinvention Productions Ltd. – and subject to the next tranche of funding, is slated for autumn next year. Some of the ideas were worked on with Performing Arts students from De Montfort University, Bedford, which had a real impact on how the draft progressed. I would happily send you a copy is you so wish, or it is also available on the web at www.reinvention.co.uk/Script.htm - along with my notes.
I know I’m a lot older than when I first started (I’m 42) and hopefully I’m just that little bit wiser. I’ve gone on long enough, and if you’ve made it this far, thank you!