Stephen Wyatt

Stephen Wyatt, born 4 February 1948 in Beckenham, Kent (now Greater London), is a British writer for theatre, radio and television.

Early life and education

Wyatt was raised in Ealing, West London. He was educated at Latymer Upper School and then Clare College, Cambridge. After a brief spell as lecturer in Drama at Glasgow University, he began his career as a freelance playwright in 1975 as writer/researcher with the Belgrade Theatre Coventry in Education team.

Full listings of his work can be found on his website www.stephenwyatt.co.uk

Theatre work

His subsequent young people's theatre work includes The Magic Cabbage (Unicorn 1978), Monster (York Theatre Royal 1979) and The Witch of Wapping (Half Moon 1980).

In 1982 and 1983, he was Resident Writer with the Bubble Theatre for whom he wrote Glitterballs and The Rogue's Progress.

His other theatre work includes After Shave (Apollo Theatre 1978), R.I.P Maria Callas (Edinburgh Festival / Hen and Chickens 1992), A working woman (from Zola's L'Assommoir) (West Yorkshire Playhouse 1992)Pick Yourself Up(Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch, 2011)A Victorian Mikado (Krazy Kat Theatre, 2011)The Standard Bearer (Waterloo East Theatre, London / Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, Los Angeles 2014) The Devil in the Belfry (Libretto after a scenario by Claude Debussy) (Gottingen 2013)Told Look Younger (Jermyn Street Theatre. 2015). He also collaborated with Jeff Clarke on The Burglar's Opera for Opera della Luna (2004) "stolen from an idea by W. S. Gilbert with music nicked from Sir Arthur Sullivan" and with the Weaver Dance Company on "The Loves of Mars and Venus".

Television work

Wyatt's first work for television was Claws, filmed by the BBC in 1987, starring Simon Jones and Brenda Blethyn. He was then commissioned by Andrew Cartmel to write two scripts for the science-fiction series Doctor Who, which were called Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, both starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. His other television credits include scripts for The House of Eliott and Casualty.

Radio work

He has worked for BBC Radio since 1985 as both an adapter and an original playwright.

Radio adaptations

• Sketches by Boz (1998–1999)
• The old wives' tale (2003)
• Gilbert without Sullivan (2003–2004)
• Vanity Fair (2004)
• Oblomov (2005)
• Tom Jones (2007)
• The Talented Mr Ripley (2009)
• Alice Through the Looking Glass (2012)
• The Divine Comedy (2014)

Original plays include

• Fairest Isle (1995,Sony Award Winner)
• Gray's Elegy (2000)
• Party Animal (2003)
• Dr Brighton and Mr Harding (2006)
• Memorials to the Missing (2007)
• Gerontius (2011)
• Finlandia (2015)

Publications

• Three plays by Pinero - Introduced by Stephen Wyatt (Methuen, 1985)
• Paradise Towers (Target Books, 1988)
• The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (Target Books, 1989)
• Memorials to the Missing (London, 2007)
• R.I.P, Maria Callas and other monologues for stage and radio (London, 2007)
• Gilbert without Sullivan (London, 2007)
• L'Assommoir (London, 2007)
• The Speculator (London, 2009)
• So You Want To Write Radio Drama? (Nick Hern Books, 2013)

Awards

His play Memorials to the Missing (2007) won the Tinniswood Award for best original radio script of 2007 and Silver in the Best Drama category of the 2008 Sony Radio Academy Awards.

His radio drama Gerontius (2010) won the 2011 Tinniswood Award for Best Radio Drama Script.

External links

• Official Website
• Writer's Guild of Great Britain profile
• Stephen Wyatt Interview at Best British TV
• Biography of Stephen Wyatt at On Target
• Stephen Wyatt at IMDb
• Stephen Wyatt at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• 'Diversity' radio play listing: Stephen Wyatt