Write On Holiday

Dave is an ex-teacher, ward orderly, hot potato merchant, encyclopaedia salesman and a doffer in a Yorkshire mill. He started his career with the BBC and has had in excess of 30 productions broadcast.

Most recently, however, he has developed his career in theatre and film. He was Resident Writer for the Library Theatre in Manchester for two years and has written several plays for them including The Beauty Game, The Cheeky Chappie (about the comedian Max Miller), Soapbox, A Marginal Affair, and several Christmas shows, including The Prince and the Pauper, Huckleberry Finn, The Secret Garden (which went on a nationwide tour), and The Little Princess (which was then adapted for BBC radio). His adaptation of The Railway Children is constantly performed by reps and amateurs and the Birmingham Rep produced a twenty five week nationwide tour. His other stage productions include Single Sex for the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch, Perfect Partners for the Bristol Old Vic and his comedy, Girls’ Night Out, a hugely successful play which toured for three years and had a limited ten week run in the West End in 1998.

He was also commissioned to write the Girls’ Night Out the screenplay, which is due to go into production early next year. His television credits include Coronation Street, The Bill, and for five years he was a writer on Emmerdale. His 6 part comedy drama, Perfect Partners, has been optioned by Kay Mellor’s company, Rollem Productions. He has a new stage play, The Naked Truth, touring the UK for 13 weeks in Spring 2007 and a new TV drama (co-written with Diane Whitley) in development with Granada TV.

Diane Whitley originally trained as an actor and has worked extensively at some of the country’s leading theatres as well as in film, television and radio. From 1995 - 1998 she successfully combined a writing career with running her own production company, Bite-Back Productions. Between 1998 and 2004 she worked for Granada Kids as a Series Producer and Writer. She produced two series of Children’ Ward, created and produced a new comedy drama series, Big Meg Little Meg and produced and wrote on two major kids series 24Seven, and Girls in Love.

Diane began writing in 1987 and has had several plays and series broadcast on BBC Radio including Castlehill, Flights of Fancy and the critically acclaimed children’s thriller, Crimewaves. Her stageplay version of Castlehill was produced at Contact Theatre where she was resident writer in 1990. Most recently, her stage-play Vegetable, was produced at the 24/7 festival in Manchester, winning Best of the Festival and going on to get nominated for a Manchester Evening News theatre award.

Her television and film writing credits include five years on the BBC children’s drama series Grange Hill, Home Farm Twins, The New Worst Witch; and the award winning feature film Boston Kickout (Co-written with director Paul Hills. Diane is currently working on a new TV drama (co-written with Dave Simpson), which is in development with Granada TV.