GARY BROWN RADIO PLAYS

BBC BROADCASTS:
1998 Hidden identity: 3 part political thriller
2000 Work in Progress
2002 Fat Camp
2003 My Dad Knows
2004 The Spire (Golding), dram, 2 x 60 min

Gary Brown is one of the few playwrights who can produce dialogue and plots which are extremely funny. A couple of years ago we had Work in Progress where an incompetent actor finds himself working with an award winning director and eventually ends up stabbing him during a rehearsal. Now we have Fat Camp (R4, 1415, 15 Apr 02); Josh is overweight and can't get a girlfriend, and he's going to a fat camp for the summer holidays, so he can lose three stone and pull birds. Whilst there he meets funny, confident Dan. But when a plan to steal food backfires, Dan's other side is revealed. A witty play, and Andrew Knott and Danny Burns were well-cast as Josh and Dan.

Gary Brown has also directed a large number of plays. These will be listed lower down the page when I have enough information.

NOTES ON SOME OF THE PLAYS

Hidden Identity....1998
A taut, three-part political thriller by Gary Brown. With Daniel Isaacs, Stuart Richman, Linal Haft, Lloyd Peters and Thelma Ruby. Producer Andy Jordan.

RADIO REVIEW Sep 03 / VRPCC newsletter
The last few months has been an unusual period for radio drama since it marks the return of Guy Meredith, Jonathan Smith, Barry Keefe, Alick Rowe, and Moya O'Shea, all of whom had new plays broadcast after a long interval. One hopes that other well-known names will find their way back into the schedules. There have been lots of other things too; another one-man play by Mike Mears, some well-produced Friday plays on rather serious issues, and good work by Marcy Kahan, Peter Kerry, Gary Brown (see below) and Val Syms, as well as by a number of younger writers.

MY DAD KNOWS....2003
A fast-paced comedy about football, sex and sacred Jewish scriptures, with some double-dealing thrown in. R4, 19 Jun 03, 1415. As Mark prepares for his bar mitzvah in 1973 he starts to realise that his father has a dark secret. With Sue Jenkins,Adam Paulden, Terence Mann, Lloyd Peters, Malcolm Raeburn, Naithan Arlane, Mark Chatterton, Laurence Josephson, Stuart Richman, Gregg Baines, Asad Waheed, George Feld, Ian Oster; director Jim Poyser.

The Spire, by William Golding, dram. Gary Brown....2004
R4 Classic Serial, 2 x 60 min, beginning 26 Sept: Oliver Cotton/David Fleeshman/John McArdie/Kathryn Hunt/Rob Pickavance/Deborah McAndrew /Lloyd Peters/Russell Dixon/Brigit Forsyth/Deka Warmsley/Rosie Fleeshman. Good dramatisation of an excellent story.


AS PRODUCER

A SECOND TO MIDNIGHT (R4, 2102, 13 Jul 07 and 20 Jul 07) was an exciting two-part Friday Play by Andrew Walker and Christopher Reason about the oil industry in Nigeria and some of the conflicts of interest between the indigenous people and those, like us, who use the oil. This play attracted much comment on the BBC messageboard, from drama enthusiasts and energy experts, and was well-received. It had a feel of Saturday Night Theatre about it, with good pacing and plot development over the two episodes. It starred Ian Puleston-Davies, Charlotte Emmerson, Cyril Nyi, Brigit Forsyth ("Thelma" from "The Likely Lads", I recently discovered) and was produced by Gary Brown.

Callum ....2005
.......(R4, 1415, 21 Feb 05) was an entertaining comedy-drama by F. Todhunter, directed by the playwright Gary Brown. Set in a vocational college for the disabled, it starred Callum, who wants to keep his head down and get his gardening qualification, Mr. Gough, who doesn't like him, and a young disabled lady who's just been taken on as a new teacher and who's determined to end the status quo, especially if it means that Gough will have to do some work. Callum was played by Deka Walmsley and Sara by Emma Hughes Jones. (ND, VRPCC newsletter)

Nigel Deacon / Diversity website.

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