I've spent my career creating characters and stories that feel original, surprising and true - true to me, and true to what's really going on beneath the surface of the world. The place that made-up stuff and laughs can reach that nothing else can.
The moment I realised those same skills worked outside fiction came when an ex-CEO asked me to add a few jokes to his keynote speech. I read it and immediately saw that jokes weren't what it needed. What it lacked was character, drama, connection. It was a lecture. A very intelligent, well-intentioned lecture - but a lecture nonetheless.
So instead I brought it to life with setting, suspense, jeopardy, characters, dialogue. I tempered data with drama, war stories with likeable self-deprecation, hard-nosed truths with a little humanity. And it worked. For the CEO. And for me. Because I saw a whole new world opening up - super-smart people with amazing things to say who need to give those things air and shape. And a surprising spin or two.
All my writer's instincts, in a completely different room. Because a story is a story, whether it's a screenplay or a shareholder address.
I've been a script and screenwriter pretty much all my career, specialising on the storytelling, comedy-drama side of the street. My times in TV have given me great friends, a strong ear for dialogue, good story sense, a deep need for original thinking and a fantastic Grace Jones story, which I might tell you one day if you're good.
As Grace probably knows, my past credits include single films, comedy-dramas and sitcoms for the BBC, ITV and almost all the top production companies. I created children's series and films, won a British Comedy Award with Alistair McGowan and worked with everyone from Dame Edna to Hugh Bonneville to the Spice Girls and Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future). My play Democracy For Beginners was broadcast on Radio 4 and I once co-wrote a Christmas comedy book which was No 1 in The Sunday Times List for 4 weeks, keeping Alan Bennett at number two. Sorry Alan. Let's hope yer Mam wasn't too upset.
Away from work, I live in North London with my wife Hazel and an opinionated Welsh Terrier called Watson - a creative and highly individual dog who probably has a Netflix comedy-drama in him, if he can ever get me to write it for him.
What's the story I can help you with?
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