doraproductions
New 5 part series by Yolanda Mercy & Jade Lewis, with Jade directing, me directing for August 2020. Subject under wraps for a bit but it is a great subject and we are all very excited.
New 2 part dramatisation of Mary Stewart's 1950s Romantic Thriller, the first book of its kind, Madam, Will You Talk? which I will be producing and directing in association with Pier Productions.
GEOFF NORCOTT'S WITHDRAWAL DISAGREEMENT
The second of the three Geoff Norcott commissions was recorded and broadcast in early July. Originally intended to mark 100 Days Post Brexit it focused instead on how our relationships with each other have changed since the Referendum.
L to R: Mark Nelson, Barry Castagnola, Geoff Norcott, Leanne Everitt
Working as Executive Producer with LAMDA and Audible on four amazing new plays supporting new directors and writers to audio with final year LAMDA actors.
Sophie Moniram and Eno Mofon
Jane Fallowfield and Ross Willis
Guy Jones and Joe White
Miranda Cromwell and Rebecca Boey
And we won!
Produced for Pier Productions, GEOFF NORCOTT: RIGHT LEANING BUT WELL MEANING a stand up comedy for BBC Radio 4. A total departure for me politically: Geoff is a working class Tory and Brexit voter. And we don't agree on anything! But this is the sharp, intelligent voice we should have been hearing more often in the run up to the Referendum. And the man is seriously funny. It was chosen as BBC Comedy of the Week Podcast. A further run has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4. More news on that to follow.
My production for BBC Radio 4 Geoff Norcott: Right Leaning but Well Meaning one of three finalists for BBC Radio & Music Awards for Best Comedy 2019!
New programme has been commissioned to mark 100 Days post Brexit…although like everyone else we are still waiting to find out when that will actually be.
Working with BBC/Arts Council/Screen South on New Creatives Awards for 2019 and 2020. Assessing and supporting audio work from 16-30 years olds with Pier Productions. 100 new and emerging artists working in film, audio and interactive will be commissioned.
https://www.screensouth.org/events/bbc-screen-south-launch-new-creatives/
New commission from BBC Radio 3 to make five essays in which leading comedians write about a singular influence on their work. Transmission December 2019.
Been invited to judge three major awards this month.
JANUARY 2019 – MARCH 2019
Teaching the Radio module on the MA Creative Writing course at UAL Central St. Martins.
Consultancy for DK books (Dorling Kindersley) looking at audiobook development for their titles.
Audiobook Consultancy for Sunshine, brand and entertainment company, developing their podcast for Harrods.
Executive Producer for Minotaur Productions Audible Original podcast series Folsom Untold presented by Danny Robins. It shot to top of Audible US charts.
Recording FACE IN THE CROWD in Handsworth Park for BBC Radio 4 documentary tx 11am 22nd June 2018 and on then on the BBC Radio iPlayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6phll
The programme traces four of the faces in the crowd at Africa Liberation Day 1977. The event, the largest gathering at that time of black people in this country, was photographed by Vanley Burke (second left). His photographs are the only record of this extraordinary gathering. Louisa and Rhonda Nisbett and Derek Douglas (above) are in the photographs. They are all children of Windrush immigrants and as such became the first major generation of black teenagers in the UK. They are joined in the programme by Norville Bynoe who has been caught up in the Windrush generation debacle.
(Norville Bynoe (right) looking at himself in one of the photographs for this first time with Vanley Burke. The photographs are hanging in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Produced for Pier Productions, GEOFF NORCOTT: RIGHT LEANING BUT WELL MEANING a stand up comedy for BBC Radio 4. A total departure for me politically, Geoff is a working class Tory and Brexit voter. And we don't agree on anything! But this is the sharp, intelligent voice we should have been hearing more often in the run up to the Referendum. And the man is seriously funny. It was chosen as BBC Comedy of the Week Podcast. A further run has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4. More news on that to follow.
Produced BBC Radio 1xtra's first drama, QUARTER LIFE CRISIS by Yolanda Mercy.
Review in The Spectator: 7 April 2018
There were new plays on Radio 1Xtra this week as part of the BBC's drive to reach out to younger audiences (how I wish they could have been broadcast on Radio 4 to broaden that station's range). Quarter Life Crisis by Yolanda Mercy (and directed by Caroline Raphael) stars Mercy herself as a young black woman, approaching 26, who's wondering whether she will ever find her way in life, feel grown-up, have the opportunity to break free. 'Do you have to know where you're going in life, or is it OK to make it up as you go along?' asks Alicia. It's fast, it's funny, it moves around in time, making the most of the form. Mercy is apparently writing several plays for TV; I hope we don't lose her voice from the radio.
WE WON!!
My production of THE RED by Marcus Brigtstocke and starring Rufus Jones and David Calder won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Original Audio Drama Production (Single Play). It will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 on February 1st at 14.15. I produced and directed it for Pier Productions Limited.
My production of THE RED by Marcus Brigtstocke and starring Rufus Jones and David Calder has made it to the final shortlist of three for the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Original Audio Drama (Single Play). It will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 on February 1st at 14.15.
In the past month I have lectured at the University of Salford, The University of the Arts London Central St Martin's, University of Lincoln and taken script surgeries at The University of Sunderland. Students have included MA and BA Media Production students and students on MA Creative Writing Courses.
Delighted to announce that THE RED by Marcus Brigstocke longlisted for BBC Audio Drama Award.
Producer for Pier Productions
BBC Radio 4: The Remote by Mark Watson
He is surprised she cannot remember why she left. It may have been nearly 30 years ago, but he can. And he's always hoped she would come back to him. Their lives have drifted to opposite sides of the world but perhaps they are not as remote form each other as they think. Over the years, it becomes increasingly possible to find almost anyone on the internet.
Raquel Cassidy (Downton Abbey, W1A, Silent Witness, Lead Balloon) stars alongside Richard Lumsden (Doc Martin, Father Brown and R4's Clare in the Community).
Remote is a first radio drama by the award winning comedian Mark Watson. Mark has had several comedy series on Radio 4, including Mark Watson Talks a Bit About Life, and is the host of the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards. He is a published novelist and one of his books has been optioned this year by Steven Spielberg's studio, Amblin.
Producer for Dora Productions
BBC Radio 4: Join the Dots
Five part documentary series about the dot in some of its many manifestations. Presented by Janet Ellis pictured here at The Clown Gallery with Matty Faint.
Programmes still available to listen to here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096dh30
BBC Radio 4: The Red by Marcus Brigstocke
Rufus Jones and David Calder star in Marcus Brigstocke's first drama for radio.
Benedict has been sober for 25 years. On the day of his father's funeral, he learns he has left him an unsettling final request. Benedict's father loved wine. He collected it and found sharing it with his friends and family an act of love and joy. But his son is an alcoholic. We witness how this has affected both their lives and their relationship in this drama based on Marcus Brigstocke's own experience of recovery.
The play was recorded on location in a 400 year old wine cellar.
Rufus Jones is best known as a comedy actor with starring roles in television comedies including W1A, Hunderby and Camping.
David Calder has had many leading parts on stage including the National Theatre and RSC, and television.
Marcus Brigstocke is best known as a stand-up comedian and has been a regular performer and writer on BBC Radio 4 programmes including The Now Show, I've Never Seen Star Wars, The Brig Report and Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off.
Delighted and proud to have been elected Vice-Chair of The Radio Independents Group, the trade body for the audio industry. RIG was responsible for negotiating with BBC Radio to secure increased access for independent producers. Please contact me if you are considering joining and would like to find out more.
Drama on 3: My Own Life from the writings of Oliver Sacks, David Hume, James Boswell & Adam Smith
Oliver Sacks: Joss Ackland
David Hume: Ken Stott
Adam Smith: Gordon Kennedy
James Boswell: Robin Laing
In 2015 Oliver Sacks published, My Own Life, announcing that he was terminally ill.
In 1776 David Hume discovered he was mortally ill and wrote his autobiography, My Own Life.
Sacks looked to Hume's work as inspiration for how to have a good death. Sacks faced his final months with a promise to himself to live 'in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can' encouraged by the words of Hume. He writes of a clarity of purpose while at the same time detaching himself from the inessentials of life. Sack's admiration for Hume is explicit in his choice of titles.
Hume's work was published posthumously in 1777 and there was a great deal of curiosity and consternation – how would this avowed atheist approach death with no prospect of an afterlife?
This is an opportunity to hear the Sacks and the Hume, alongside the account written by James Boswell of visiting the dying Hume (later described as the journalistic coup of the 18th century), and the letter written by Adam Smith to Hume's publisher about his passing. Smith's letter does exactly what he says: 'My account, therefore, shall begin where he ends'. Smith completes Hume's own work. The two documents were published together in 1777.
Comedy Drama Almost Like Being in Love by Catriona Knox BBC Radio 4
Starring (l to r): Catriona Knox, Gemma Whelan, Rosie Cavaliero , Rasmus Hardiker.
Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones and Moorside) stars in Catriona Knox's romantic comedy. What does love look like in a world of non-binary, gender-fluid, constantly hyphenated thinking?
Grace is equipped with all the emotional trappings of youth – confidence, confusion, crippling arrogance, crippling insecurity. She thinks of herself as sexually liberated – and she may be in theory, but she definitely isn't in practice. She's slept with three men, missionary-style. That's it.
Then she falls in love with Iggy (Rosie Cavaliero) – a charismatic, no-nonsense, forty-year-old LBGT matchmaker. And that's when life really starts to get bewildering.
As they attempt to embark on a relationship neither of them expected, both women navigate brave but very different new worlds. Iggy's new path is as alien to her as heterosexuality, while Grace has to work out if she really is fluid enough to grab the best thing that's ever happened to her with both hands.
A comic, coming of age story about love, sexuality, cats and Judy Garland.
As a writer/performer, Catriona Knox has had several successful character comedy shows at the Edinburgh Festival. As an actress, she has appeared regularly on television shows such as BBC Two's Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe and Revolting, and Channel 4's Damned. She has also had two comedy series on Radio 4 as part of The Boom Jennies. She is a part of the BBC's New Talent Hotlist 2017 for Writing. This is her first play for radio and one of four commissions from top stand up writer/performers creating their first radio drama.
Article to accompany Dora Production's BBC Radio 4 documentary Hersey's Hiroshima.
Read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37131894
Executive Producer: Cracking Up by Johnny Daukes. A Big Talk Production.
4 x 15′ Comedy drama series written and produced by Johnny Daukes for BBC Radio 4
Listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pfdvw
Lance: written and performed by Kieran Hodgson
45′ audience comedy drama for BBC Radio 4.
Produced and directed by Caroline Raphael for Pier Productions.
A one-man show about growing up, hero-worship, betrayal and cycling, written and performed by Kieran Hodgson. It was nominated for the 2015 Edinburgh Comedy Award, receiving five star reviews and selling out tours across the country.
It is 2003 and the teenage Kieran is training for the Scouts Holme Valley Mountain Bike Challenge in West Yorkshire. Inspired to 'Just Do It' by his hero Lance Armstrong, a signed poster of the cycling superstar is his most precious possession. So how is he going to cope when he discovers his hero has betrayed him?
Kieran plays all the parts in this heartfelt story recorded in front of an audience by one of the country's up and coming comedy writers and performers. Kieran's recent television work includes playing the role of Ian Lavender in the BBC 2 drama We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story.
MAY 2016 – ongoing
Executive Producer & Consultancy for Penguin Random House UK Audio.
New business development and review of recording and production processes.
MARCH 2016 – ongoing
Four dramas written by comedy performers writing Drama for BBC Radio 4 for the first time.
Confirmed writers include Catriona Knox.
JANUARY – FEBRUARY 2016
From Script To Show: A 13 session intensive training course for Radio Drama and Radio Comedy Producers designed and run by Caroline Raphael and Dora Productions for Grand Scheme Media with support from Creative Skillset and Audible.co.uk.
Consultancy for major London Drama School considering their audio training provision with advice about current state of the audio business, production opportunities and refreshing freelance teaching staff.
2015 AND ONGOING
Consultancy for major Radio Independent production company focusing on company strategy, management of freelance prodoucers, drama and comedy development.