The TENNYSON AGENCY
Representation for Literature, Drama and
Screenwriting
TONY BAGLEY
Tony is an experienced writer in all
media: initially a transport economist, he worked as a copy editor for Wayland
Books, a journalist and a script editor for Central Television. For
radio, Tony has written short stories for BBC R4, and contributed to its daily
soap opera, The Archers, for two and a half years. Two series of
his comedy, The OLDER WOMAN, with Martin Clunes and Zoe
Wanamaker, have gone out on R4; as have three series of MARRIED,
with Hugh Bonneville and Josie Lawrence. Commissioned radio plays
include: CATCHING BULLETS, LIFE on a NEW PLANET, PUBLIC
INTEREST and The LAST CIGARETTE of the WAR. On
television, Tony's black comedy, The LAST WORD, was seen on
BBC-2, and he has provided copious sketch material for both adult shows
including Alas Smith & Jones, Spitting Image, Rory Bremner,
Arnold Brown, and children’s television. Commissioned
scripts include The Walkers, Control, Best
Supporting Actor, The Fantastic Adventures of Simon Blood
and episodes of Specials for the BBC; and for Alomo, both an
original script and an episode of Birds of A Feather. Elsewhere, a
comic novel, The NATURAL HISTORY MAN, was
commissioned for Pavilion Books; and a screenplay, ENEMY, was
developed with help from the BFI Production Board. Tony's work has been
widely acknowledged. He won a Giles Cooper Award for The MACHINE
(BBC R3) - imagining the effects of sound recording in Jacobean England - and a
New London Radio Playwrights Award for his L.B.C. play, PROPHET.
He was joint winner of the Gooding Award for best 30-minute script; winner of
the Alomo Comedy Writing Bursary (1996); and Grand Prix winner of the PAWS
Drama Award (1999). Tony was also shortlisted for the London Weekend
Television New Writer Award (1998) and the Oscar Moore Screenwriting Prize
(2001). Currently available are LIFE IS SUFFERING, an
innovative television comedy in half-hour format; and NAZIS, a
powerful post-WW2 drama exploring British Fascism and the human cost of divided
loyalties. Forthcoming is The NEED of MASSACHUSETTS for COMPOSERS,
confronting the repressive puritanism of the English Commonwealth.
Tony’s RUBBISH - the
life and awkward times of a local government wage-slave – was
broadcast on BBC Radio Four in autumn 2006, and subsequently on Radio Four
Extra..
KRISTINA BEDFORD
At the University of
Toronto, where she graduated with distinction in English and Drama, Kristina
Bedford directed several productions at the George Ignatieff Theatre. She
went on to earn her M.A. in Drama at the University of London with a
thesis on the National Theatre production of Coriolanus, later
published by AUP, which opened the door
to nearly ten years work in various capaciies at the NT. Her drama
criticism has been extensively published, and Kristina has done freelance
dramaturgical work for various London theatres. An early version of her
play ANGEL DAY was presented by NAAA
at the Tristan Bates Theatre under the title LEAP of FAITH, and
the play has undergone professional critical review. Current stage
projects include The SOUL of PLEASURE, taking a quizzical look at
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester; and a new adaptation, co-written with Kenneth
Ross, of The Value of Life, the best work of Chekhov's friend and
sometime collaborator, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. She is also working
with Ken Ross on PICTURING ANNIS, a feature-length screenplay
with a modern setting and a supernatural mood.
ALASTAIR CORDING
A respected stage and television
actor, and author of numerous literary adaptations, Alastair has achieved
repeated success with his 1993 version of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's classic SUNSET SONG, revived by Prime
Productions in 2001 and 2002 for national tours of Alastair's native Scotland,
and now available from Nick Hern Books.
Amongst the stage pieces now available, following initial commission and
production by TAG Theatre and Eastern Angles T.C., are CLOUD HOWE and
GREY GRANITE (second and third in the SCOTS QUAIR
trilogy); LANARK; and NO NAME. In 1998, MRS
O'S SATURDAY NIGHT was produced at the Covent Garden Festival (revived
2000); while Alastair's acclaimed version of Dickens' DAVID COPPERFIELD for
a cast of eight (revived for a national tour by Eastern Angles in Spring 2003)
is the foremost stage adaptation available, widely performed on the
non-professional stage. The original thriller FATALE was
premiered at the Horseshoe Theatre, Basingstoke in 2001. Eastern
Angles' Spring 2002 tour of a touching Norfolk-set tale, The WALSINGHAM ORGAN,
played to enthusiastic audiences across East Anglia, and was followed by MARGARET
DOWN UNDER, seen on a UK regional tour in the autumn of 2004. It
is to be followed by an adaptation of John Buchan's WITCH WOOD
for RCB Productions, and a further work for Eastern Angles exploring the life
of St Edmund the Martyr, provisionally scheduled for 2012. There was a successful revival and subsequent
tour of SUNSET SONG by His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, in the
autumn of 2008; followed by a presentation of a revised, shorter version of the
play at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010.
Alastair is currently working on an important new play examining racial
and emotional identity in the context of the British Empire’s twilight years.
CAROLINE COXON
Currently collaborating with Philip Hurd-Wood on A PLACE in the COUNTRY,
Caroline is a very experienced freelance
writer. Formerly a teacher in special educational support services,
she has authored work for organisations as diverse as the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission and the Fawcett Society. Her other screenplays include ME
for a MOMENT and FALLING AWAKE, both stories of
women rebuilding their lives after emotional and physical trauma.
IAIN GRANT
An accomplished translator of German
literature, Iain Grant has specialised in the work of neglected modern authors,
including Stefan Zweig. The CHESS-PLAYERS, his adroit
version of Zweig's Schachnovelle, is currently available for
publication; and Iain is now working on complementary fiction from the early
20th Century.
JONATHAN HOLLOWAY
Director of Red Shift T.C., which he
founded in 1982, Jonathan is also an established writer. Original plays
include In the IMAGE of the BEAST (Edinburgh Fringe First award);
The HAMMER (theatre and BBC Radio 3); DARKNESS FALLS (Palace
Theatre, Watford, and published by Samuel French Ltd.); NOSFERATU: the
VISITOR; and two plays commissioned for Nottingham Playhouse, BECAUSE
IT'S THERE: the STORY of MALLORY and EVEREST and ANGELS among the TREES
(produced in May 2004). Adaptations for the stage include The
DOUBLE, DEATH in VENICE, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT,
The ASPERN PAPERS, Les
MISERABLES, NICHOLAS
NICKLEBY, The MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, The LEGEND
of KING ARTHUR and the first stage versions of Graham Greene's The
THIRD MAN in 2004 and Mike Hodges' GET CARTER in
2006. For television, he has written for both Anglia and Thames
Television (The Bill). Jonathan has also written
extensively for BBC Radio 4, with four original drama series and adaptations of
work by Walter de la Mare, Willa Cather, Angela Lambert, Evelyn Waugh, Heinrich
Boll, Arturo Perez-Reverte and George Eliot, and a masterful ten-hour
adaptation of C P Snow's STRANGERS and BROTHERS novel sequence,
broadcast as the Classic Serial in spring 2003. Jonathan's original ghost
story, NO CONFERRING, went out
on Christmas Night 2003; and his two-part dramatisation of the first human
heart transplant by Christiaan Barnard was broadcast March 30-31, 2004.
Scheduled for future transmission is a striking detective story set in
contemporary Sweden. Jonathan has served on both the Board of the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Council of the N.C.A.; he has led
EU-sponsored theatre workshops in Chile; and he is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Arts.
JULIAN HOWELL
With a record of writing in a variety
of genres, including comedy revue, conceptual theatre and audio books, Julian
consolidated his place as a feature screenwriter with an original thriller,
working title PURE, now available after options from two major
producers. Having burnt all her boats, a young woman finds life is
accelerating out of control: in a twisting story, reality and lies are juggled
to devastating effect. A feature development of his widely-admired
30-minute film, ART HEIST, is ready for production (working title
HOOKED).
PHILIP HURD-WOOD
Philip has three scripts currently
available for television or feature production. The FIGHTING
MACINTYRES, a sensitive story of feuding and reconciliation set against
the beautiful backdrop of rural Northern Ireland; WHERE the DEER and the
ANTELOPE PLAY, an unusual comedy-drama which questions society's
treatment of emotional and mental disturbance; and CITY LIMITS, a
fascinating, fast-moving thriller whirling through the changing landscape of
millennial London, now in further development. Just finished is The
CRAIGEELEE, a short film giving the colourful background to one of
Australia's national icons; and newly in development is a life-change drama set
in rural Britain, A PLACE in the COUNTRY, co-authored with Caroline Coxon.
STEVE MacGREGOR
In Steve's freshly-available feature
screenplay FULL MOON DAY, unimaginable forces have been set loose
in the Scottish Highlands, and the police find themselves outflanked - by the
Americans, the Russian mafia and not least, the strangely self-possessed Linda
Grey. Only her knowledge can explain the twenty-four hours of mayhem that
lead to an unnerving conclusion. A technical writer, software developer
and expert motorcyclist, Steve kick-starts his screenwriting career with this
powerful thriller. A perfectly-judged period drama for radio, GENTLEMAN'S
MASQUERADE, is also available. Now completed is THE STONES,
a cautionary tale set in 1914, showing what happens when the modern world
intrudes on primæval mysteries best left well alone.
ANTONY MANN
Antony's short film, BILLY'S DAY
OUT, was exceptionally well-received at the 2004 Edinburgh
International Film Festival, where it jointly won the Best UK Short Film Award,
and he now has several more short projects available, including MECHANIC,
IT'S MY RAMPAGE and TENNIS. FRIENDS
& OTHER ENEMIES, a screen adaptation of his serio-comic novel The
SUICIDE CLUB, has now been developed via the EAVE and Good Foundations
schemes, and Antony has recently completed a screen version of Peter
Grimes under commission from Allegra Films. He is developing a
full-length version of MECHANIC. Full rights are currently
available to FRIENDS & OTHER ENEMIES; to Antony's gripping
supernatural mystery feature, KING under the HILL, which has
attracted wide interest; and to a radio drama, WILD MAN of the SOUTH.
Antony is also the author of a delightful chapter book for 5-7 year-olds, WINDY
DAY, which is available for mainstream publication.
Please visit Antony's personal website: www.antonymann.com
KEN ROSS
A native of Edinburgh, Ken
has lived in London for many years. His work has been produced at the Traverse
Theatre, the Almost Free Theatre and on the Edinburgh Fringe, and on television
and radio. He has also contributed to two collections of Scottish short
stories published by HarperCollins. Ken received a Peggy Ramsay
Foundation Playwriting Award in 2003 for his two-hander abduction drama
HELEN'S STORY and he is currently working, with Kristina Bedford, on a
film-script and a translation of Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko's The
Value of Life. Ken's wide experience is related fields includes
writing audio and video sales scripts; abridging numerous classics for Penguin
Audio; producing over a hundred audiobooks; and editorial peer review for the
Royal Court, Writernet, Scriptvault, and the London Script Consultancy.
Production rights are available to all Ken's stage drama, notably The
POOL on the 26th FLOOR, The SMELL of FANTASY, MORENO
(a reimagined Renaissance revenge tragedy) and HELEN'S STORY. Other
projects include OSCAR WILDE: A SAVOY OPERA, a cleverly worked
revue-style entertainment contrasting the respective encounters of Wilde and
Gilbert & Sullivan with bourgeois taste and morality at the close of the
19th Century.
ELIZABETH MOYNIHAN
Elizabeth
grew up in Youghal in the Irish Republic, and her work draws inspiration from
her experiences and feelings as an Irishwoman. Her writing career began
with Cider Queens, a two-act stage play initially read at
the New Theatre in Dublin, then workshopped by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (the National
Theatre of Ireland). The
subsequent serialised adaptation of the play for RTE was broadcast in 2009,
winning the Irish Writers' Guild Zebbie Award for Radio Drama of the
Year. Another two-acter, Slaughterhouse, Swan, was
given a successful production by Eala Productions at the Focus Theatre in
May, 2010. It won 5 nominations and was awarded best new writing , best visual
production and best actress at the Absolute Theatre Festival in Dublin that
year. The full-length stage
play In the Absence of Snow was given a staged reading
by the Choocolate Factory in 2004, and developed two years later by Blood in
the Alley TC, rights being acquired by Focus Theatre, Dublin. Tic,
a fascinating drama of a woman imprisoned by marriage, was premiered in 2007 by
Tall Tales TC, subsequently being published by Liberty Press and optioned by
Focus Films; a full-length version of the play was presented to great acclaim
in Dublin by Focus Theatre in August 2010. The one-act stage play Walnuts
remind me of my mother was premiered at the
2009 Absolut Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and revived for
Limerick Pride Week the following autumn. The powerful three-hander stage play Pinching for my
soul has been given a staged reading at RADA in London, and a full
production at Focus Theare in June/July 2011. After a commission from the Abbey Theatre for their Something
Borrowed strand, Elizabeth’s one-act play Marvel was
performed there in September 2011.
JOHN RYAN
Vastly experienced as a musician and
composer, John has two musicals now available for production. BROOKLYN
BRIDGE is an ingenious one-woman show: Muriel is fast approaching
40, but she's distracted in her efforts to find Mr Right by an endless battle
of wits with her momma-from-Hell, Ada. Then, God steps in... with
alarming consequences. New York-set ME
presents One Apartment; Two Relations; Three Attractions; Four Revelations;
Five Denials; and Six not entirely generous People in a round-dance of love and
misunderstanding. Both pieces have received public and critical plaudits
on their world premier productions in Ireland, and are ideal for small and
mid-scale, medium-budget presentation.
WALTER
SAUNDERS
SHAKESPEARE 2000 is a new edition of the most-studied plays
of the canon, juxtaposing Shakespeare's text with a lucid modern version which
adheres closely to the poetic form of the original. In addition to the
great tragedies - King
Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello
and Antony and Cleopatra - the series to date features
Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo
& Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest
and Twelfth Night. It is now open to negotiation for
European, US and Australasian publication. In South Africa, the initial
editions by Centaur and Heinemann SA have been widely used for teaching and
performance in the public school system, with over 150,000 copies in
circulation. As a concept, SHAKESPEARE
2000 has been universally praised by teachers and educationalists
for its unparallelled success in making Shakespeare readily accessible to a
modern audience ("An exciting project... greatly to be
welcomed." Dr Susan Bassnett, University of
Warwick).
GRAEME SCARFE
Following his feature debut with the
claustrophobic and intense thriller, LIGHTHOUSE, released in
2002, Graeme now has three further full-length screenplays completed, each in a
different genre. SEAGULLS on SPEED is a delightful, quirky tale
of seaside skulduggery, featuring gangsters, narcotics, passionate romance -
and some peculiarly addictive fast food. "You'll believe a bird
can fry". GAMBIT, adapted from the best-selling
novel by Antoinette Falquier & Joseph Harned, tells a complex tale of nuclear
blackmail, in which the fate of world peace comes to depend on a very
surprising substance. Rights to both properties are currently
available. Graeme has just completed a commission from Articulate
Pictures to script the romantic comedy feature MARTA’S VINEYARD
(w/t) for future production. Graeme’s latest project is The
INFLUENCING ENGINE, a screen adaptation of Richard Hayden's successful
and intriguing historical thriller; full production rights are now available.
DIANE SPEAKMAN
Former
Drama Editor at Cambridge University Press, Diane is a seasoned writer of prose
and poetry, with work in many published anthologies. She has also been a
senior member of the editorial staff of Argosy, and Assistant Editor of Granta. She has also written both for the
national press, including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The
Stage, and such periodicals as Drama and Everywoman.
Currently in preparation is a compilation of writing on women in theatre.
Major plays now released for full production include BOUNDARIES,
workshopped twice by Soho Theatre and produced by Norwich Playhouse; TALISWOMAN,
the astonishing true story of the Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi,
seen at both Birmingham Rep and the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and now to
be produced at Leicester Guildhall in November 2009; and An HONEST
ACTRESS, detailing the switchback career of Sarah Siddons, first lady
of the late 18th Century stage, which was developed at the Theatre
by the Lake, Keswick. Other stage writing includes SYDNEY
(a monologue), and A COUPLA HOTTUNZ, seen at the Half
Moon Theatre. Among Diane’s short screenplays are
PLAYING with FIRE, BIG SISTER IS WATCHING YOU,
RUSSIAN ROULETTE and HOUSE of CARDS, all of
which are available for production; a feature, REVOLUTION DREAMING,
is currently in development. Diane’s writing appears in FEMALE
VOICES, FIGHTING LIVES (Raymond Williams Award, 1992).
DIANA WARD
Ready now for television or film production is ARMADALE, Diana's
definitive adaptation of Wilkie Collins' 1850s classic. Featuring Lydia
Gwilt, Victorian fiction's greatest anti-heroine, a breathlessly thrilling plot
takes in murder, revenge, multiple mistaken identities and the final triumph of
innocent love. A must-read. Diana has recently completed a richly
atmospheric screen version of Robert Louis Stevenson's 19th Century Scottish
romance WEIR of HERMISTON. Radio versions of both these
scripts are also available. Diana has recently completed screen and radio
versions of George Eliot’s political novel set at the time of the Great Reform
Bill of 1832, FELIX HOLT the RADICAL.
CLICK THE ICON BELOW TO RETURN TO OUR HOME PAGE
_____________________________________________________
The TENNYSON AGENCY
10 Cleveland
Avenue, Wimbledon Chase, London SW20 9EW, U.K.
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8543 5939
©The Tennyson Agency 2008