About Stephen

Stephen Wyatt is an award-winning British writer whose work spans radio, stage, musical theatre, and fiction.

Stephen was born in Beckenham, Kent and grew up in Ealing, West London. He was educated at Latymer Upper School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he earned a Ph.D. for his dissertation The Victorian Extravaganza 1830–1885. While at Cambridge, he directed the 1973 Footlights Revue Every Packet Carries a Government Health Warning. His first full-length play, Exit, Pursued by a Bear, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival that same year. After a brief period as Lecturer in Drama at Glasgow University, Stephen began his career in 1975 as a writer/researcher with the Belgrade Coventry Theatre in Education team. He went on to become Resident Writer with the London Bubble Theatre in 1982 and 1983.

Since then, Stephen has worked extensively as a freelance playwright across theatre, radio, and television. His experience also includes novels and short stories, librettos, teaching, writers’ workshops, script reading, and creating audio guides.

He is especially celebrated for his contributions to radio drama, including over twenty original scripts and numerous dramatisations of, among others, Thackeray, Gogol, Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, and Dante. In 2007, his radio play Memorials to the Missing won the Tinniswood Award for Best Original Radio Script and also received Silver at the 2008 Sony Radio Academy Awards. He won the Tinniswood Award again in 2012 for Gerontius, making him the only writer to win this award twice.

His notable recent radio works include:

• The Divine Comedy (BBC Radio 4, 2014) – A three-part adaptation of Danet’s masterpiece later released on CD.
• The Shadow of Dorian Gray – (BBC Radio 4 2015) A play about John Gray, the inspiration for Oscar Wilde’s character.
• Finlandia (BBC Radio 3, 2015) – A drama celebrating Sibelius’ 150th birthday, starring Tim Pigott-Smith.
• Monsignor Quixote (BBC Radio 4 2016) A dramatisation of Graham Greene's novel featuring Bernard Cribbins.
• The Seven Ages of Woman (BBC Radio 4, 2021) – Monologue performed by Sian Phillips.
• Song of the Cossacks (BBC Radio 4 2023 – Adapted from Jean Binnie’s stage play. About Britain’s betrayal of the Cossacks to the Russians after the end of World War Two.
• A House Called Insanity (Radio 4 2024) – An original drama about the 1930s mortgage strike.

Stephen co-authored So You Want to Write Radio Drama? with Claire Grove, published by Nick Hern Books, now considered a classic guide to the subject.

His more recent stage work includes:

• Told Look Younger (Jermyn Street Theatre, 2015)
• The Loves of Mars and Venus and its sequel The Loves of Pygmalion (Weaver Dance Company; performed in Richmond, London, and Valetta, 2019 and London 2023)
• Look Up at the Stars – A one-woman show for Jessica Martin (Waterloo East Theatre, 2019)
• Two Cigarettes in the Dark – A comedy starring Penelope Keith, originally scheduled for 2022 (postponed due to Covid; revival in planning)
• Me and Him and Who - about Dr Who producer John Nathan Turner (Manchester 2025. National tour planned.)

Stephen’s musical collaborations include a completion of Claude Debussy’s The Devil in the Belfry with renowned musicologist Robert Orledge (CD available on Pan Classics) and Cautionary Tales, a musical inspired by Hilaire Belloc’s verse, with Tim Binding, Gavin Mole, and director Keith Warner. He recently gave five talks for BBC Radio 3’s The Essay under the title of Unsung Heroes about the neglected art of the librettist in opera and musical theatre.

Stephen’s television work includes an original screen play Claws and contributions to Casualty and House of Elliot but he is best l known for his contributions to Doctor Who, writing two classic serials: Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

In the literary field, he published his debut novel The World and His Wife. A True Story Told by Two Unreliable Narrators in 2019 (republished by AUK in 2024 with Kindle and audio adaptations). He also co-authored Hurst on Film (2021), a biography of filmmaker Brian Desmond Hurst, and released a short story collection The Wallscrawler (Obverse Press, 2022). Obverse has also published two Paradise Towers-themed story collections featuring his work: Build High for Happiness! and Ice Hot!

Stephen has held several academic fellowships including:

• Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Sussex (2008 – 10)
• RLF Writing Fellow at Greenwich University’s Maritime Campus (2011–12 and 2018–19)

He has spoken on writing and radio drama for various organisations, including:

• Writers’ Guild of Great Britain podcast (May 2012)
• ALCS AGM keynote (December 2014)
• ALCS Newsletter interview (2009)

A full list of Stephen's writing can be found under Work .

Theatre

Stephen’s first full length play was a comedy about student angst called Exit, Pursued by a Bear, which was produced at the 1973 Edinburgh Festival.

His first job in professional theatre was as Writer/Researcher to the Belgrade Coventry Theatre in Education team in 1975. He created several shows in collaboration with the T.I.E. team and this began an involvement with young people’s theatre which has continued throughout his career including work for York Theatre Royal, the Unicorn Theatre and the Half Moon. He is currently dramaturge to the Brighton-based children’s theatre company, Krazy Kat Theatre.

Stephen’s one and only West End show was the all-women musical revue, After Shave, which he wrote with Nic Rowley. A look at male/female relationships, After Shave was arguably ahead of its time. It came from a highly successful run at the Haymarket Theatre Leicester ill-prepared into the Apollo Theatre in 1978 and died a quick death. Its up and coming producer, one Cameron Mackintosh, omitted it from his producer credits for many years.

In 1983 and 1984 Stephen spent two stimulating years as Resident Playwright working with the London Bubble Company, which tours shows round London in a tent. Working with Artistic Director, Bob Carlton, and Musical Director, Kate Edgar, he created Glitterballs, a cabaret style treatment of the rise and fall of the Kray Twins and The Rogue’s Progress, based on Henry Fielding’s novel about the infamous 18th century Thief taker General, Jonathan Wild.

He has adapted novels for the stage on several occasions. One of the most successful was his version of Zola’s L’Assommoir, created with Jane Gibson, Sue Lefton and Anthony Ingle. Under the title of A Working Woman, it was produced at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1992 to considerable critical acclaim. It’s now been published.

Stephen has always been fascinated by musical drama and opera so he leapt at the chance of working with Jeff Clarke of Opera della Luna. Jeff had heard Stephen’s adaptation of W.S. Gilbert’s The Burglar’s Tale on radio and together they created The Burglar’s Opera “stolen from an idea by W.S. Gilbert with music nicked from Sir Arthur Sullivan”. It is being revived at Wilton's Music Hall in September 2020.

He also worked with Robert Orledge, a leading expert on Debussy, on a performing version of Debussy's unfinished comic opera, The Devil in the Belfry, based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. This had its world premiere in Montreal in March 2012 and its European premiere took place in Gottingen in December 2013.

He then wrote the script for Krazy Kat's new show A Victorian Mikado which toured in May and June 2011. In March 2011 the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch staged the premiere of the expanded two-act version of his musical comedy Pick Yourself Up with music by Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. Audiences and critics gave it a very favourable reception.

His dramatic monologue The Standard Bearer was revived with Neil Dickson directed by Julian Sands. The production has since played both at the Waterloo East Theatre in London and the Stephanie Feury Theatre in Los Angeles.

Told Look Younger, a provocative and frank comedy about sex, love, friendship and growing old, directed by Sue Dunderdale, had a very successful four week run at the Jermyn Street Theatre in June/ July 2015, supported by the Arts Council of England. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Carlo Annoni Prize.

He's also collaborated with the Weaver Dance Company on The Loves of Mars and Venus and The Loves of Pygmalion. Written separately, they now form the double bill, Steps in Love, which will be performed at the Steiner Theatre in London and at the Early Music Festival in Valletta, Malta, in January 2022.

His one-woman show for Jessica Martin, You Thought I was Dead, Didn't You? - The Life and Times of British Screen Legend Patricia Marshall, opened at the Waterloo East Theatre in November 2019. It is being expanded to create a full length evening for production later in 2022.

His comedy Two Cigarettes in the Dark starring Dame Penelope Keith directed by Alan Strachan was due to open at the Chichester Festival Theatre in February 2022 before going on tour to Cambridge, Guildford, Cardiff, Richmond, Brighton, Bath and Malvern. Alas, Covid led to the cancellation of the tour. In February 2025 his play about his Dr Who producer John Nathan-Turner and his partner Gary had a successful launch at the Seven Oaks Theatre in Manchester. A national tour is planned for next year.

Work for Radio

In 2008 Stephen won the Tinniswood Award for his play Memorials to the Missing. The prize is awarded by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and the Society of Authors for the best original radio drama script broadcast in 2007. Memorials also won Silver in the Best Drama Award in the 2008 Sony Radio Academy Award.

In 2012 at the inaugural BBC Audio Drama Awards Stephen won the Tinniswood Award a second time for his play Gerontius first broadcast in 2010.

ALCS News also published an interview with Stephen in 2009.

More recently, Stephen talks about his work in a Writers Guild of Great Britain podcast posted in May 2012.

Stephen’s first play for radio was Help Stamp Out Quicksand broadcast in 1977 but it was only in the late 1980s that he began regularly working in radio drama. In 1993 his play Fairest Isle about the creation of Purcell and Dryden’s King Arthur won a Sony Award. In 1994 his adaptation of Gogol’s Dead Souls was shortlisted for a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award and in 2003 his hard-hitting contemporary drama, Party Animal, was shortlisted for the first Tinniswood Award. Both Memorials to the Missing (2007) and Gerontius (2010) have won the Tinniswood Award. In all, Stephen has created over twenty original scripts for radio.

Stephen is also well known for his dramatisations. Highlights include: Walter de la Mare’s Memoirs of a Midget (1993), Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise (1997), Sketches by Boz (1998-1999), Gilbert without Sullivan (2003-4), Arnold Bennett’s The Old Wives’ Tale (2004), Vanity Fair (2004) and Tom Jones (2007). In 2009 two series of his adaptations were broadcast – Thackeray’s The Yellowplush Papers in the 11.30 am slot and versions of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley, The Boy who followed Ripley and Ripley under Water for the Saturday Play - as well as Farewell Symphony, a play for Radio 3 about the last days of the composer Haydn. He has recently completed work on four dramatisations for Radio 4's Classic Chandler. To accompany them he has written two plays about Raymond Chandler's work as a Hollywood screenwriter - Double Jeopardy (February 2011) about working on the screenplay of Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder and Strangers on a Film about working with Alfred Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train (September 2011). Patrick Stewart played Chandler in both productions.

His dramatisation of Stefan Zweig's Beware of Pity was broadcast in November/December 2011 and his dramatisation of Alice Through the Looking Glass was heard on Radio 4 at Christmas 2012 and his three-part dramatisation of Dante's The Divine Comedy in the spring of 2014.

More recent projects include The Shadow of Dorian Gray about John Gray, the model for Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray and Finlandia a play for Radio 3 to celebrate the 15Oth anniversary of the birth of Sibelius. The Psychic Circus, a Dr Who audio drama, for Big Finish came out last year and his radio monologue, The Seven Ages of Woman, commissioned by Pier Productions, was performed by Sian Phillips in January 2021. At the end of 2022 he completed Me and Him and Who an audio drama about the last days of the Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner issued by AUK audio.

Stephen's most recent radio play is The Song of the Cossacks broadcast in March 2023 on Radio 4. It's a dramatisation for radio of a stage play by Jean Binnie about the shocking story of the British collaboration with the enforced repatriation of the Ukranian Cossacks to the USSR at the end of World War Two.

Teaching, Script Reading, Audio Guides

Stephen has wide experience as a teacher, workshop leader and script reader.

The institutions he has taught for include the University of Glasgow, The City Lit., The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Central School of Speech and Drama, Boston University’s London Internship Programme and the Arvon Foundation. He spent two years as Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Sussex and in May 2012 he completed a year as RLF Writing Fellow on Greenwich University's Maritime campus, returning there in 2018/19 for a further year.

As a script reader, he has read for New Writing South, the Arts Council of Great Britain, Methuen Drama and the Orange Tree in Richmond among others. He has worked for BBC TV both as Script Reader and Script Editor and in 2006 he was one of the judges of The Literary Consultancy’s new play competition.

Stephen has particular links with New Writing South. He has been one of New Writing South’s script readers for a number of years and he has repeated his well-regarded workshop course The Craft of Writing for Radio on a number of occasions, most recently in 2016. He became one of NWS's Associate Artists in 2013.

In collaboration with New Writing South and the University of Sussex, he created an online course Writing Radio Drama which ran successfully between October and December 2009. It was repeated again between January and March 2011. His book So You Want to Write Radio Drama? written in collaboration with Claire Grove has been a recommended text on a number of writing courses.

Stephen also has credits as a scriptwriter for numerous audio guides, including the Elizabeth 1 exhibition at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Maiden Castle, the Royal Mews and the Ranger's House in Greenwich.

List of audio guides

• The Wernher Collection at the Ranger's House (English Heritage, 2002)
• Elizabeth The First (Greenwich Maritime Museum, 2003)
• The Royal Photographic Society (for the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, 2003)
• Merchant Adventurers' Hall (York, 2004)
• Netley Abbey, Maiden Castle, Baconsthorpe Castle (English Heritage and Antenna Audio, 2006) All these are available via the English Heritage website. Maiden Castle has also been chosen as a sample of Antenna's work on the Antenna Audio website,
• Titchfield Abbey, Houghton House, De Grey Mausoleum (English Heritage and Antenna Audio, 2007) All available via the English Heritage website.
• Encompassing The Globe (Beaux Arts Museum, Brussels and Antenna Audio, 2007)
• The Royal Mews (Buckingham Palace and Antenna Audio, 2008)
• Birmingham Town Hall (Antenna Audio, 2008)