Martin Allen (writer)

Last updated

Martin Allen (born in Wakefield, Yorkshire) is an English playwright and screenwriter. [1] [2]

His first play, the one-act Taking The Floor (1982), formed part of an entertainment at the Bloomsbury Theatre for the launch of a new album by The Passions. In 1983, his play Red Saturday, for Paines Plough, [3] directed by Tim Fywell, toured the UK and was staged at the New End Theatre in Hampstead. It won the 1983 Samuel Beckett Award, and in 1984 transferred to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, then under the auspices of Danny Boyle. It was published by Faber. In 1985, as part of the Thames TV Playwrights scheme, he was writer in residence at Hampstead Theatre where his play Particular Friendships, directed by Michael Attenborough, won Thames TV’s best play award for that year. It was also published by Faber.

In 1986, his original screenplay Song of Experience was directed by Stephen Frears for the BBC Screen Two series. He then wrote the screenplay for Paul Greengrass’ debut feature Resurrected (St Pancras Films & Channel 4) which was entered in competition at the 1989 Berlin Film Festival where it won both OCIC and Interfilm awards for best film. It was given a UK theatrical release later that year. [4]

In 1991, he joined the writing team at Coronation Street and has written over 300 episodes. As part of the team, he was winner of the Writers’ Guild award for best drama serial in 1993, 2009 and 2013. [5]

In 1998, his original screenplay Touch And Go, [6] a BBC Screen Two film, directed by Tim Fywell, achieved the highest viewing figures for a BBC Two drama that year.

Between 1999 and 2002, he wrote nine episodes for the first four series of Bad Girls .

Projects of note which remain unproduced include The Unyellow Years (1987) for St Pancras Films, tracing Vincent van Gogh’s early career in the Netherlands; The Glasnost Special (1990), a comedy for Skreba Films; White Lies (1990), a four-part thriller for Sleeping Partners (Paul Greengrass & Andy Harries) and Channel 4, set in Antarctica; Going Critical (1993), for the Royal Shakespeare Company, then under the tenure of Adrian Noble; Hell To Pay (1995) a rehearsed reading at the Vaudeville Theatre in association with Michael Codron; Spring And Port Wine (2001), a pilot for a ten-part series based on the Bill Naughton play for Carlton TV (Charles Elton and Jonathan Powell); and The Master Cut (2005), a play about the music business.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Bennett</span> English actor, playwright (b. 1934)

Alan Bennett is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Minghella</span> British film director, playwright and screenwriter

Anthony Minghella, was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hare (playwright)</span> British playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director

Sir David Hare is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Best known for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hoursin 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Readerin 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Gray</span> British writer and academic

Simon James Holliday Gray was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to five published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanif Kureishi</span> English writer (born 1954)

Hanif Kureishi is a British playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker and novelist of South Asian and English descent. In 2008, The Times included Kureishi in its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

Tony Marchant is a British playwright and television dramatist. In 1982 he won the London Critics' Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright for The Lucky Ones and Raspberry. In 1999 he won the British Academy Television Awards Dennis Potter Award for services to television. His television work includes the acclaimed Holding On (1997), Never, Never, starring John Simm and Take Me Home.

Joe Scott Penhall is an English-Australian playwright and screenwriter, best known for his award-winning stage play Blue/Orange, the award-winning West End musical Sunny Afternoon and creating the Netflix original series Mindhunter.

David Pownall FRSL is a British playwright and prolific radio dramatist performed internationally, and novelist translated into several languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paines Plough</span> Touring theatre company

Paines Plough is a touring theatre company founded in 1974 by writer David Pownall and director John Adams.

Pearson Playwrights' Scheme is a British organisation established in 1973 to support theatre writing. It runs the Pearson Award for Best New Play.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Treves</span>

Frederick Simon Treves is an English actor, director and writer, best known for playing Harold 'Stinker' Pinker in three series of ITV's Jeeves and Wooster. In 2018 he played Aleister Crowley in the short film Boca do Inferno, directed by Luis Porto and shot in Porto and Cascais, Portugal.

Dennis Kelly is a British scriptwriter for theatre, television and film.

Terry Johnson is a British dramatist and director working for stage, television and film. Graduating from the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, he worked as an actor from 1971 to 1975, and has been active as a playwright since the early 1980s.

The Apathists were a collective of British playwrights who staged plays and happenings in London between March 2006 and March 2007. The events generated a cult following on the London theatre scene. The collective had a festival of their work at the Union Theatre produced by David Luff and were involved in the 2006 Latitude Festival, but their work mainly centred on monthly nights at Theatre503, formerly the Latchmere Theatre.

Alexis Zegerman is a British actress and writer.

Stephen Thompson is a British playwright and screenwriter.

Penelope Skinner is a British playwright. She came to prominence after her play Fucked was first produced in 2008 at the Old Red Lion Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival to huge critical acclaim and has had successive plays staged in London including at the Bush Theatre, National Theatre and Royal Court Theatre, where she is a member of the Young Writers Programme.

Michael Wynne is an Olivier Award winning playwright and screenwriter.

Reuben Johnson is an English actor and writer. He is known for portraying Sean in the BBC series Prisoners' Wives, Wee Man in the feature film Weekender and Ashley in the feature film Territory, which he also wrote and directed. He grew up in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Allan Cubitt was previously a teacher at John Ruskin High School, Croydon during the 1980s teaching English who became a British television, film, and theatre writer, director, and producer, best known for his work on Prime Suspect II and The Fall.

References

  1. London Theatre Record - Vol. 5, 1-13 p. 239, 1985 "Faber Plays have sprung to life: They have put out Martin Allen's Red Saturday, auch ad-aired last year in Paines Plough's production"
  2. "Allen, Martin, 1964-". id.loc.gov. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  3. Plough, Paines. "Theatre". Archived from the original on 29 October 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  4. Martin Allen at IMDb
  5. "Exclusive: All Current Corrie writers online" . Retrieved 7 April 2013.
  6. Touch and Go at IMDb