ME AND HIM AND WHO

A lovely review of my John Nathan-Turner audio drama from Lee Thacker in Set the Tape.

MORE WEAVER IN LONDON

Peter Ashmore, Artur Zakirov and Chiara Vinci in The Loves of Mars and Venus

WEAVER IN LONDON

A packed house gave a very warm reception to the Weaver double bill. Videos and photos to follow. For the moment a photo of us all lining up for a post-performance photo shoot with members of the Early Dance Circle who sponsored the performance. Me to the left by the Early Dance Circle representatives with the cast and band to the right.

WEAVER DANCE SUCCESS!

The company had a huge success at the Manoel Theatre in Valetta, Malta. And next Saturday 2ist January they're at the Marylebone Theatre in London. The first time my two scripts for the Weaver Ensemble have been played together.

PRAISE FOR THE WALLSCRAWLER

BOOK REVIEW| The Wallscrawler & Other Stories (2022)

Oliver Dallas Book Reviews Jan 7, 2023 2 Minutes

My first ever Doctor Who memory was watching an early morning repeat of Paradise Towers with my father in the late ninteen-nineties. I was only four or five years old at the time, but I still have vivid memories of being both enthralled and appalled by the diverse range of characters who inhabitated the towers, especially Tabby and Tilda, who became the first ever Doctor Who monsters that I hid behind the sofa from…!

Ever since that fateful morning, I have continued to be both enthralled and appalled by the various works of it’s writer Stephen Wyatt. As observed by fellow fan and author Robert Shearman, Stephen has the rare talent of creating worlds and characters which are larger than life but still credible and rooted in some form of reality. Whether it’s the punk inspired Kangs with their slang and graffiti, or the vain and morally bankrupt explorer that is Captain Cook.

This new publication from Obverse Books is a collection of all of Stephen’s short fiction to date, including new material which has been written exclusively for this book. These include various monologues featuring characters from his two Doctor Who stories, six new pieces inspired by his recent reading of the Old Testament, and six monologues which were originally written and performed for BBC Radio.

As a self confessed and unashamed Paradise Towers fan, the highlights of this collection were the monologues based around that story, especially The Great Architect, which finally allows the titular villian, Kroagnon to be the intelligent schemer that we never got to see onscreen. And despite sounding controversial, the six monologues based on The Old Testament are actually very sensitively written. And as Stephen himself points out in the book’s introduction, the more outlandish aspects of them actually come from the original biblical sources themselves!

But the jewels in this particular crown are undoubtedly the BBC Radio monologues, especially HO! HO! HO!, which is probably Stephen’s magnum opus (excluding Paradise Towers of course!). All about a department store Santa who is feeling anything but jolly during the festive season, HO! HO! HO! is a tale of loneliness and frustration disguised as a light-hearted romp. If you’ve ever doubted Stephen’s credibility as a serious and nuanced writer, then read this and think again. It’s enough to put the likes of Alan Bennett to shame.

If you’re a fan of Stephen and his work, then this book is an essential purchase. If you are someone who likes his ideas, but not how they are interpretated by other people, then I would still recommend this book, as it is the closest that you’re probably ever going to get to experiencing his work raw and unedited. I can guarantee that by the time you’ve finished it, you will be hailing him as the new Great Architect of literature!

ME AND HIM AND WHO

A nice fuve star review of my JNT audio drama from We Are Cult,

Me & Him & WHO is a fascinating look at one of Doctor Who’s most colourful off-screen characters, whose enthusiasm sustained the series for a decade. As the show enters a new phase of Disney-powered international distribution, this seems a timely moment for reflection. Arguably, had he lived to see it, it’s easy to imagine JN-T as one of the show’s greatest assets; his public loyalty to those he worked with shines through in Stephen Wyatt’s thoughtful, but ultimately tragic, script.

Naturally, the allegations surrounding the pair’s off-screen exploits, particularly Gary’s less-than wholesome fan interactions, are briefly addressed. First emerging in Richard Marson’s terrific 1993 biography of JN-T, they’ve been discussed elsewhere; notably, they were briefly tabloid fodder.

Wherever you stand on JN-T’s tenure as Doctor Who producer, his contribution to the show’s history was phenomenal. Me & Him & WHO is an appropriately bittersweet tribute to this complicated character, whose career and life is worthy of re-evaluation. More than that, it’s a touching and tragic love story too.

We also rather love the clever cover artwork by Robert Hammond which blends elements of Doctor Who‘s various 1980s title sequences.

WEAVER DANCE

Following performances at the Baroque Music Festival in Malta, the Weaver Dance Company is presenting a double bill of baroque dance song and music with scripts by me at the Marylebone Theatre on Saturday 21st January. Prepare to be entertained!

THE CLEANER

Thanks to the generosity of Matt West, I am now the proud owner of a model Robotic Cleaner from Paradise Towers.

BERNARD CRIBBINS

As part of Radio4 Extra's tribute to Bernard Cribbins, my adaptation of Graham Greene's Monsignor Quixote is being repeated.

This is alongside an extended conversation between Bernard and his long-term friend and mine, the radio producer Martin Jenkins.

MEMORIALS TO THE MISSING.

Very touched to receive this report of a performance of my play MEMORIALS TO THE MISSING in a church in Minchinhampton on Remembrance Sunday:

We had an audience of 150 (the place has never been so full!) and everyone thought that the play was brilliant and very moving. (Which of course it is, but it was satisfying to find that in the fifteen years since you wrote it, it has lost none of its power to create genuine emotion in an audience who mostly had no real idea of what they were coming to see. At the end, we used a recording of the Last Post which included the 'dead wind' effect which we used whenever the ghosts spoke, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house – absolute silence before prolonged applause!)