Scripts

Radio Drama

For BBC Radio 4: BAT AND BALL (1992), about a girl obsessed with cricket, was produced by Dave Sheasby. THE WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVER (1998), produced by Nandhita Ghosht, was a trilogy of plays written with Mary Cooper, about another girl, this time involved with eel fishing on the Humber Estuary. SOFT STONES (2000), produced by Sue Roberts, was a memorial in verse to a close friend who died of Aids and was also written with Mary.

 I WAS A STRANGER (2004), with Chewitel Ejitfor and produced by Pauline Harris, was about the death of a very different young man, Prince Alamayou of Ethiopia, in Leeds. And BUFFALO BILL AND LITTLE MATTY DYER (2010), produced by Gary Brown, was another Leeds story, this time about a boy caught up in Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1904.

Theatre

My first commissions were community plays: two of them, STRAIGHT LINES and FLO OF THE FLEET, were produced at The Shaw Theatre for the London Borough of Camden and featured giant puppets, whilst another, THE DREAMING POND, was written for the villages of Upton-cum-Kexby in Lincolnshire.

For STREETBEAT, written for Remould Theatre with Rupert Creed, I lived with Humberside Police for six months. A play about Alzheimer's Disease, CHANGE OF MIND, originally commissioned for Jabbok Theatre, was toured nationally with Mind The Gap, and has also been produced in Israel and South Africa. TOUCHWOOD, a millennial play, was performed in Southwell Minster in 2000. INSIDE KNOWLEDGE, a set of two plays researched with cancer patients as part of a Health Trust consultation on the building of the new Leeds cancer unit, was performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2002/3. SILAS MARNER, an adaptation of the novel by George Eliot, commissioned by Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah, was toured nationally in 2006. The Blahs subsequently commissioned and produced THE PIANO MAN, directed by Ruth Cooper. SHAPALLO, a play about Enver Hoxha's professional double, set in the Albanian mountains, has received public readings at RADA and at the Theatre Royal York. ONLY WATER BETWEEN was a play I wrote for the Royal Armouries based on the memoirs of Hiram Maxim and the newly-discovered letters of a First World War soldier. It has been revived three times and performed at The Edinburgh Festival.

 Fifty Six Ninety Six Theatre Company, who performed OWB, also commissioned and performed a play, THE CAGE, workshopped in 2013, about the Hull writer Dan Billany. DROVERS ROAD, a community play, was commissioned by Helmsley Arts Centre and performed by a cast of 60 in June 2013.

HIDDEN SPIRE was a play scripted from devised sessions with members at Crisis/Skylight at The Old Fire Station, Oxford, in 2014. BALBY UNSUNG was a series of three plays commissioned by Right Up Our Street in Doncaster, all performed in non-theatre settings: a community-run library, an ex-psychiatric hospital, and a working men's club. WAY THROUGH THE WOOD was a performance in Meanwood Park, Leeds, produced by A Quiet Word in 2016 celebrating green spaces in the city, MEET ME AT THE MANSION a companion piece celebrating the 150th anniversary of Roundhay Park. HOUSE, in which I appeared as a performer, was another site-specific produced by A Quiet Word, this time in Headingley. SAND HOUSE had a 5 day run at Cast in Doncaster in 2018.

Television

ALARMED, a comedy concerning a burglar alarm that cannot be turned off, co-written with Mary Cooper again, was a winner in the New Voices competition, commissioned and broadcast by Yorkshire/Tyne Tees Television in 1997.

Opera & Musical Theatre

This area of my work began with two musicals written with The Mercury Workshop, of which I was a founder member alongside Howard Goodall, Stephen Clark, and Stephen Dexter from the Sondheim Master Class: THE CHALLENGE (The Shaw Theatre) and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (The Place). THE LAST WAVE, with composer Stephen Keeling, was produced by Mistco in 1997. A PIG'S TALE, for the Ryedale Festival, with music by Nick Williams, was performed in July 2006 and MAGGIO'S MAGIC, with music by Tim Brooks, at the same festival the previous year. OTTO was written with composer Richard Barnard and is hard to define; more a poem with music than a song cycle. AT THE BORDER, also with Richard Barnard, about the experience of exile, was written for young people's choirs in Bristol with the BBC Singers, whilst CORRIDORS was a short opera written with composer Richard Taylor for English National Opera/Bayliss. BRONTE, music by BB Cooper, was produced and toured by The Redgrave Theatre, starring Ruth Madoc.

THRESHOLD, a musical performance about the idea of hospitality produced by Schwa with Jacqui Wicks, toured with Arts Council support in 2016 and has been succeeded by two other song cycles: A LARK, and HOPE OF A TREE, premiered at Leeds Lit Fest 2020. HOPE OF A TREE became a film in 2021.THE WEIGHT OF SMOKE is a music performance piece about Sir Walter Raleigh, performed with Dave Bowie Jnr and touring nationally from 2018.