Amanda Whittington

Last updated

Amanda Whittington (born 1968 in Nottingham) is an English dramatist who has written over 30 plays for theatre and radio. Her work is widely performed by companies across the UK, with recent productions at Hull Truck, Oldham Coliseum, New Vic Theatre and Nottingham Playhouse. Be My Baby is a popular GCSE and 'A' level choice in English Literature and Theatre Studies. She currently[ when? ] has two titles in Nick Hern Books' Top Ten Most Performed Plays. In 2017, she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy by Publication at the University of Huddersfield.

Contents

Original stage plays include Be My Baby, The Thrill of Love, Ladies Day, Ladies Down Under, Mighty Atoms, Kiss Me Quickstep, Amateur Girl, Bollywood Jane, Satin n Steel, The Dug Out and Player's Angels (adapted for Bristol as The Wills's Girls). Stage adaptations include Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe, My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt and Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters.

Original radio plays include D for Dexter (returning series), The All-Clear, Louisa's, The Dock Nuremberg, Once Upon a Time, Paradise Place and The Nine Days Queen. Book adaptations for radio include Man At The Helm by Nina Stibbe. Whittington won the 2016 BBC Audio Drama Awards for a series or serial for D for Dexter. [1]

Whittington began her writing career as a freelance journalist for titles including Nottingham Evening Post, New Statesman and Society and The Face. In 2016, her radio drama D for Dexter won Best Series/Serial in the BBC Audio Drama Awards, and the fourth series was broadcast in November 2017. In 2001, she jointly won the Dennis Potter Screenwriting Award for Bollywood Jane, a work she later adapted for stage. As of 2018, she is co-chair of the Writers' Guild Radio Committee.

She held Royal Literary Fund fellowships in 2014–2015 at De Montfort University and in 2018–2020 at Nottingham Trent University. [2] As of 2023 she is a member of the advisory "Art Squad" of the Halifax-based Northern Broadsides theatre company. [3]

Whittington's plays are published by Nick Hern Books and Samuel French.

In 2018, Ladies Day was revived in a new production for Wolverhampton Grand Theatre. [4]

Mikron Theatre Company commissioned a play, Atalanta Forever, by Whittington about women's football and the short-lived Huddersfield Atalanta Ladies' Football Club for its 2020 season. [5] [6] The 2020 tour was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic but the show toured, to outdoor venues only, in 2021. [7] Mikron then commissioned Whittington to write A Force to be Reckoned With, about women police officers, for the 2023 season. [8]

Stage plays

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siân Phillips</span> Welsh actress (born 1933)

Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips, known professionally as Siân Phillips, is a Welsh actress. Her early career consisted primarily of stage roles, including the title roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. In the 1960s, she started taking on more roles in television and film. She is particularly known for her performance as Livia in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius, for which she was awarded a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society award. She was nominated for a Tony Award and Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance as Marlene Dietrich in Marlene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penelope Wilton</span> English actress (born 1946)

Dame Penelope Alice Wilton is an English actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gemma Jones</span> British actress (born 1942)

Jennifer "Gemma" Jones is an English actress. Appearing on both stage and screen, her film appearances include Sense and Sensibility (1995), the Bridget Jones series (2001–2016), the Harry Potter series (2002–2011), You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), and Ammonite (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Jameson</span> English actress (born 1951)

Louise Marion Jameson is an English actress with a variety of television and theatre credits. Her roles on television have included playing Leela in Doctor Who (1977–1978), Anne Reynolds in The Omega Factor (1979), Blanche Simmons in Tenko (1981–1982), Susan Young in Bergerac (1985–1990), Rosa di Marco in EastEnders (1998–2000) and Mary Goskirk in Emmerdale (2022–present).

Amanda Root is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as Anne Elliot in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Persuasion. A familiar face on both stage and screen, she worked regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company during her early career, performing as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, among other roles. In 2009, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Sarah in Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests.

Niamh Cusack is an Irish actress. Born to a family with deep roots in the performing arts, she has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre, and many others. Her most notable television role was as Dr. Kate Rowan in the UK series Heartbeat (1992–1995). Other TV and film credits include Always and Everyone (1999–2002), The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends (1992–1995), The Closer You Get (2000), Agatha Christie's Marple, Midsomer Murders (2008), A Touch of Frost (2010), In Love with Alma Cogan (2011), Testament of Youth (2014), Departure (2015), ChickLit, The Ghoul, The Virtues (2019), Death in Paradise (2021), and The Tower (2023). She has been nominated at IFTA for her performance in Too Good to be True (2003).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indira Varma</span> British actress and narrator

Indira Anne Varma is a British actress and narrator. Her film debut and first major role was in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love.

Gareth S. Armstrong is a Welsh actor, director, teacher and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adjoa Andoh</span> British actress (born 1963)

Adjoa Aiboom Helen Andoh HonFRSL is a British actress. On stage, she has played lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre and the Almeida Theatre. On television, she appeared in two series of Doctor Who as Francine Jones, 90 episodes of the BBC's long-running medical drama Casualty, and BBC's EastEnders. Andoh made her Hollywood debut in autumn 2009, starring as Nelson Mandela's Chief of Staff Brenda Mazibuko alongside Morgan Freeman as Mandela in Clint Eastwood's drama film Invictus. Since 2020, she portrays Lady Danbury in the Netflix Regency romance series Bridgerton. In July 2022, Andoh became an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Julia Hills is an English actress, known for portraying the role of Rona in all eight series of the BBC sitcom 2point4 Children. She also portrayed various roles in Channel 4's first late night satirical sketch show Who Dares Wins, Beryl in two series of the sitcom Dad and Caroline Joyner in Casualty.

Be My Baby was the 1998 debut play by British playwright Amanda Whittington.

Shaun Prendergast is an English actor and writer.

Fenella Woolgar is an English film, theatre, television and radio actress. She is known for her roles in films including Bright Young Things, Swallows and Amazons and Victoria and Abdul and for TV shows including Doctor Who, as crime novelist Agatha Christie, Inside Number 9, Call the Midwife and The Buccaneers.

Laura Wade is an English playwright.

Suzy Bloom is a film and stage actress whose credits range from West End plays and musicals to BAFTA nominated film and mainstream television drama.

Sir Gregory Doran is an English director known for his Shakespearean work. The Sunday Times called him 'one of the great Shakespearians of his generation'.

The Mikron Theatre Company is an English touring theatre company, founded in 1972, which is notable for its tours by canal boat during the summer months, and by road in the spring and autumn. The company believes itself to be the only theatre company in the world which tours by narrowboat.

Deborah McAndrew is a British playwright and actor, known for playing Angie Freeman in Coronation Street in the 1990s. She is also co-founder and Creative Director of the Stoke-on-Trent-based Claybody Theatre Company, and a visiting lecturer in the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at Staffordshire University.

Hattie Naylor is an English playwright. Her 2009 Ivan and the Dogs won the Tinniswood Award for original radio drama and was nominated in the 2010 Olivier Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Theatre. It has since been developed into a film directed by Andrew Kôtting called Lek and the Dogs (2018). Other productions include Weighting Extraordinary Bodies, national tour 2015/16. Her work as a librettist includes Picard in Space with Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) directed by Jude Kelly, for the Electronica Festival at the Southbank 2012. The Night Watch, her adaptation of Sarah Water’s novel, Manchester Royal Exchange, was listed as one of the top theatre plays of the year by the Suzanna Clapp, Observer for 2016. Further credits include Yana and the Yeti with Pickled Image 2017, and As the Crow Flies Pentabus and Salisbury Playhouse 2017. Going Dark was co-written and created with Sound&Fury, Young Vic and Science Museum 2013/14, and her controversial Bluebeard directed by Lee Lyford and created with their own company Gallivant, Soho theatre, Bristol Old Vic 2013. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 notably: The Diaries Of Samuel Pepys nominated Best Radio Drama 2012, The Aeneid nominated Best Radio Adaptation, BBC Audio awards 2013, and How to Survive the Roman Empire, by Pliny and me 2015-2018. She is a lecturer in stage and screen at Sheffield Hallam University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huddersfield Atalanta Ladies F.C.</span> Defunct English womens football club

Huddersfield Atalanta Ladies Football Club was a women's football club in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, from 1920 to about 1925. It took its name from Atalanta, the fierce huntress of Greek mythology.

References

  1. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - BBC Audio Drama Awards - BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016 Winners". BBC. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  2. ↑ "Amanda Whittington". The Royal Literary Fund. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  3. ↑ "Meet the Team: Art Squad". Northern Broadsides. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  4. ↑ Orme, Steve (2018). "Theatre review: Ladies' Day at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre". British Theatre Guide. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  5. ↑ 2019 Programme. Mikron Theatre Company. p. 16.
  6. ↑ "Huddersfield Atalanta Ladies'FC". Donmouth. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
  7. ↑ Brennan, Clare (19 June 2021). "Atalanta Forever review – she shoots, she scores!". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  8. ↑ "2023 Shows". Friends of Mikron Newsletter. Winter 2022.
  9. ↑ "Hull 2017: City of Culture unveils major art, theatre and music events". BBC News Online . 22 September 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  10. ↑ Hutchison, David (22 September 2016). "Richard Bean and Amanda Whittington feature in Hull City of Culture plans". The Stage . London. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.