Career
An established theatrical playwright, Shearman has worked with Alan Ayckbourn, had a play produced by Francis Ford Coppola, and has received several international awards for his work in theatre. Award-winning plays include Fool to Yourself, which premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 1997, and which won the inaugural Sophie Winter Memorial Trust Award, Easy Laughter, (Sunday Times Playwriting Award), Coupling, (World Drama Trust Award), Binary Dreamers, (Guinness Award for Theatre Ingenuity, in association with the Royal National Theatre). In 1993 he was made resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, the youngest playwright to be honoured by the Arts Council in this way, and for them he wrote a series of plays, including his controversial comic fable about God living in suburbia, Breaking Bread Together, which later was revived in London. His association with his mentor, Alan Ayckbourn, has been particularly fruitful, with White Lies, About Colin, and Knights in Plastic Armour proving especially popular.
At this time Shearman was also encouraged to become a director for the theatre, largely reviving productions of his work abroad; in the 1990s he had a recurring engagement with the Teatro Agora in Rome, and, in 2007, the revival he directed of his comedy Shaw Cornered, was the stand-out hit as international guest at the Old World Theatre Festival in Delhi, India. In 2010, Big Finish published seven of his better known stage plays as Caustic Comedies.
His first television work was episodes of the 1950s-set rural drama Born and Bred , broadcast on BBC One.
Shearman also provided the initial script for the second series of the BBC 7 programme The Chain Gang : Picture This. The series was awarded a Bronze in the Sony Radio Academy Awards' "The Competition Award" category. [1] A further series of The Chain Gang, this time called Paper, Scissors, Stone, was a thirteen-part drama series, in which Shearman worked weekly from listeners' suggestions in shaping the story; this won a Silver at the Sony Radio Awards.
He worked as a story consultant on the 2024 Apple TV+ series Constellation created by Peter Harness.
Doctor Who
His association with Doctor Who began with a play written for BBV Audios, Punchline, in which Sylvester McCoy played the Dominie, a disguised version of the Seventh Doctor. This was penned under the pseudonym "Jeremy Leadbetter" (the name of a character from the popular BBC sitcom The Good Life ). Several audio plays for Big Finish followed, The Holy Terror, The Chimes of Midnight and Jubilee all winning best audio drama in the Doctor Who Magazine polls of their respective years. He has also had Doctor Who short stories published - his most recent being a chapter in the BBC Books novel The Story of Martha, which was released in December 2008.
Shearman wrote the television episode "Dalek" for the 2005 series of Doctor Who produced by Russell T Davies for the BBC. This was, at Davies' request, a re-working of the themes introduced in Shearman's earlier Big Finish audio play Jubilee . "Dalek" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2006, and came in second in terms of votes for its category. Shearman provided an audio commentary for the episode on the Doctor Who – Complete First Series DVD box set.
In a 2021 interview, Shearman revealed he had been involved in development for Series 5, but later departed. Head writer Steven Moffat kept up an open invitation to return, but Shearman declined, citing changes in his career and the higher profile of writers on the series. [2]
Prose writing
His first book, a collection of short stories called Tiny Deaths, was published by Comma Press in November 2007. It was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize [3] and made the longlist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. [4] In November 2008, it was named Best Collection at the annual World Fantasy Awards. [5] In 2009, one of the stories from the book, "No Looking Back", was selected by the National Library of Singapore for the Read! Singapore campaign, ensuring the story was published separately as a mini-book and distributed all over the country in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil; the author was flown over to Singapore to give talks and interviews.
His second collection, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, was published in late 2009. An odder, darker book than the first, it won the British Fantasy Award, the Edge Hill Short Story Reader's Prize - making Shearman the first writer ever to be nominated twice for this award - and the Shirley Jackson Award. A special collector's edition contained "The Hidden Story"; a tale about letters found within books, each copy was handwritten by the author, and contained in envelopes within envelopes in a Russian doll effect.
In the same year, Mad Norwegian Press published Wanting to Believe, a book by Shearman that examines The X-Files and its spin-off series ( Millennium and The Lone Gunmen ) in a critical fashion. Also in 2009, Shearman collaborated with comedian Toby Hadoke to watch and comment on every episode of Doctor Who from the programme's debut in 1963 to David Tennant's final story. The resulting discussions are being published by Mad Norwegian Press in three volumes as Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who. [6] The first volume, covering the 1960s, was published in 2010; the second volume, covering the 1970s, was published in 2016.
His third collection, "half short stories, half novel", was published in June 2011, called Everyone's Just So So Special.
Sir Alan Ayckbourn is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2024, 90 full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967.
The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. They were conceived by writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in casings designed by Raymond Cusick.
Paul John McGann is an English actor. He came to prominence for portraying Percy Toplis in the television serial The Monocled Mutineer (1986), then starred in the dark comedy Withnail and I (1987), which was a critical success and developed a cult following. McGann later became more widely known for portraying the eighth incarnation of the Doctor in the 1996 television film Doctor Who, and its audio drama continuations. He is also known for playing Lieutenant William Bush in the TV series Hornblower (1998–2003).
Terence Joseph Nation was a Welsh screenwriter and novelist. Especially known for his work in British television science fiction, he created the Daleks and Davros for Doctor Who, as well as the series Survivors and Blake's 7.
Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on science fiction properties. These include Doctor Who, the characters Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog from 2000 AD, Blake's 7, Dark Shadows, Dracula, Terrahawks, Sapphire & Steel, Sherlock Holmes, Stargate, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Timeslip, and Torchwood.
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. He is best known for his work in television acting in and co-creating shows with Steven Moffat. Gatiss has received several awards including a BAFTA TV Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and two Laurence Olivier Awards.
Doctor Who spin-offs refers to material created outside of, but related to, the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
"Dalek" is the sixth episode of the revived first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 30 April 2005. This episode is the first appearance of the Daleks in the 21st-century revival of Doctor Who; it also marks the first appearance of Bruno Langley as companion Adam Mitchell.
Nicholas Briggs is an English actor, writer, director, sound designer and composer. He is associated with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs, particularly as the voice of the Daleks and the Cybermen in the 21st century series.
Justin Richards is a British writer. He has written science fiction and fantasy novels, including series set in Victorian or early-20th-century London, and also adventure stories set in the present day. He has written many spin-off novels, reference books and audio plays based on the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, and he is Creative Consultant for the BBC Books range of Doctor Who novels.
Gareth John Pritchard Roberts is a British television screenwriter, novelist and columnist best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who. He has also worked on various comedy series and soap operas.
Helen Raynor is a Welsh television screenwriter and script editor from Swansea. She is best known for her work on the relaunched BBC science fiction series Doctor Who. She previously worked as a theatre director. Besides television episodes, Raynor has written theatrical plays, radio plays, and short stories.
Terry Molloy is an English actor. He is best known for his work on radio and television, especially his portrayal of Mike Tucker in The Archers and Davros in three Doctor Who serials in the 1980s, a role he reprised for audio adventures.
Nichola Petra "Niky" Wardley is an English stage and screen actress. Her most notable role is schoolgirl Lauren Cooper's sidekick in the BBC's Emmy and BAFTA-nominated sketch series The Catherine Tate Show (2004–2007). She also appeared alongside Catherine Tate in the Netflix mockumentary sitcom Hard Cell (2022) and played the lead role in the BBC One sitcom In with the Flynns (2011–2012). As a voice actress, she is best known for her role as the Eighth Doctor's companion Tamsin Drew in audio dramas based on the BBC's long-running science fiction series Doctor Who.
Nicholas Pegg is a British actor, director and writer.
James Goss is an English writer and producer, known both for his work in cult TV spin-off media, including tie-in novels and audio stories for Doctor Who and Torchwood, and for his fictional works beyond established universes.
Toby Hadoke is an English actor, writer, stand-up comedian and comedy promoter. He is known for his work on the Manchester comedy circuit, where he performs regularly, and as a prominent fan of the television series Doctor Who. He runs the XS Malarkey comedy club, and is involved with many comedy nights in the region. His comedy tends towards the topical and/or political.
Lizzie Hopley is a British actress and writer born in Liverpool who trained at Manchester University and RADA.
Richard Dinnick is a British screenwriter, novelist, comic book writer, narrative games narrative designer, audio playwright. He is a frequent guest at writing events and such Doctor Who conventions as Gallifrey One as well as San Diego Comic-Con.
Stephen Jordan is an English science fiction, fantasy, horror and comedy writer, playwright and director.
