GREATEST SHOW DVD OUT

Despite my reservations (see below), the team have done their usual thorough job on the dvd reissue and I'm delighted the Victoria Wood parody is thrown in.

Overall Greatest Show is proving once again considerably more popular with fans than Paradise Towers (hard for it to be less popular) and once again I hope there are new viewers out there who'll approach it with a fresh mind and enjoy it.

This is my favourite review so far from Amazon:

"I am a long-standing Doctor Who fan, but this story (together with 'Delta & the Bannermen') is absolute and complete twaddle that is an embarrassment to the illustrious history of the programme. Terrible scripts, awful story - it would make a poor attempt at a pantomime.Even the production quality is dire, with terribly unbalanced sound and over-bearing incidental music.It needs to be locked in a time loop.

I only bought it to maintain a full collection."

This has attracted a supportive comment:

"I couldn't agree with you more, as I mentioned in my previous reviews both the Colin Baker and Slyvester McCoy eras where a load of rubbish. I saw two episode of this so-called drival at a so-called friend's house, and said what a load of rubbish and it was."

P.S. Stephen's new novel BIG DIPPER has just been published by Endeavour Press.

WRITERS GUILD PODCAST

Darren Rapier has interviewed has Stephen about his work in a podcast available through the Writers Guild of Great Britain website.

GREATEST SHOW IN THE GALAXY DVD

The DVD of Greatest Show in the Galaxy is due for release on 30th July.

Stephen will be attending a Tenth Planet signing on 18th August alongside some of the cast.

SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A RADIO PLAY?

My lovely BBC radio producer Claire Grove and I have just reached an agreement with Nick Hern Books to write a book (it's part of a series) called SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A RADIO PLAY?

Very much looking forward to working with Claire and Nick. We're due to deliver our manuscript early next year.

Update - the book will be published on 5th December 2013.

THE PIED PIPER

Just been into rehearsals for the new Krazy Kat show THE PIED PIPER in my role as dramaturg to the company. The puppets are fantastic and the show promises to be well up to KK's usual very high standards.

Details of the show's run can be found on

http://www.krazykattheatre.co.uk/shows_pied.html

THE STANDARD BEARER IN SAN FRANCISCO

Neil and Julian are giving two performances of STANDARD BEARER at the Royce Gallery - Theater in San Francisco on April 20th and 21st.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/239746

THE DEVIL IN LONDON

Robert Orledge and I are giving a talk about our work on completing Debussy's one act opera THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY at an international symposium about Debussy at Gresham College, London on Friday 13th April.

This follows the successful premiere of the work in Montreal in February. We will be playing extracts from a recording of one of the performances.

GERONTIUS PUBLISHED

The script of GERONTIUS has now been published and may be bought through Lulu.com by following this link -

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/gerontius/18879384

TINNISWOOD AWARD FOR GERONTIUS

At the BBC Audio Drama Awards on Sunday 29th January, my play Gerontius about Cardinal Newman won the Tinniswood Award for best original drama script broadcast in 2010. This is the second time I have won this award and I feel very honoured.

The judges wrote that the script has "remarkable spiritual depth - sadly all too rare in contemporary drama - and a consistent subtlety of writing that displays both a sure grasp of how dialogue can bring out character and an effortless ease in moving from one type of discourse to another, from this world to the next... Wyatt has already won one Tinniswood Award and we had no doubt that the outstanding fluidity and intelligence of Gerontius, the haunting near-perfection of it, could warrant a second."

Gerontius is being repeated on Radio on Wednesday 8th February at 2.15 pm. A published version of the text is now available.

Link to report in Clare College Newsletter -

http://www.clarealumni.com/s/845/1col.aspx?sid=845&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=2221&ecid=2221&crid=0&calpgid=15&calcid=778

BONNIE READS PARADISE TOWERS

AudioGo will be releasing Bonnie Langford's reading of the novel version of PARADISE TOWERS on June 12th 2012.