Oliver Emanuel

Oliver Emanuel (born 4 April 1980) is a British playwright and radio dramatist. His play Daniel and Mary received a Bronze Sony Radio Academy Award for Best Drama in 2010.^[1] His play Dragon won Best Show For Children and Young People at the UK Theatre Awards in 2014.^[2]

Oliver Emanuel was born in Kent, attended St Gregory's Catholic Comprehensive School in Tunbridge Wells, studied English and Theatre Studies at University of Leeds (1998–2001) before going on to take the Masters in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (2001–02). He was Writer-on-Attachment at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2006 and Writer-in-Residence for BBC Radio 4 Children in Need in 2010. He has lived in Glasgow since 2006.

In addition to his radio and stage plays below, Oliver Emanuel has written two plays for Polmont Young Offenders Institute, Ship of Shadows (October 2009) and John (7 May 2010), and scripted the short film This Way Up.

Radio plays

Radio plays written by Oliver Emanuel
Date first broadcast	Play	Director	Cast	Synopsis Awards	Station Series
11 April 2007	Joseph and Joseph[3]	Colin Guthrie	Shaun Dooley, Helen Longworth, Christine Kavanagh, Sam Dale, John Dougall, Philippe Smolikowski, Mark Straker and Rachel Bavidge	Identity theft is something that happens to other people, but the person who stole Joseph's life seems to be having a lot more fun with it than he is.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
9 October 2009	Daniel and Mary[4]	Kirsty Williams	Robin Laing and Natasha Watson	A frank and moving drama exploring alcoholism from a child's point of view. Mary's nine years old. When she comes down to breakfast to find her dad's still up from the night before and still drinking vodka, she decides it's time to leave home. Bronze Sony Award for Best Drama 2010[1]	BBC Radio Scotland Drama
23 February 2010	Elvis in Prestwick[5]	Eilidh McCreadie	Read by Laura Fraser	Elvis Presley's only trip to Britain, a brief stopover on 3 March 1960 at a small Scottish airport on his return from military service in Germany. A shy young girl who doesn't even like rock 'n' roll is dragged along to the airport by her best friend, who is determined to catch a glimpse of the American superstar. Taking refuge from the crowds, the girl encounters a handsome stranger in the staff corridor – some weeks later, a letter arrives from America.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Reading
30 October 2010	The Vanishing dramatisation of Tim Krabbé novel[6]	Kirsty Williams	Samuel West, Melody Grove, Ruth Gemmell, Liam Brennan, Natasha Watson, Claire Knight and Robin Laing	Rex and Saskia stop at a petrol station. Saskia goes in to buy drinks and is never seen again. Eight years later, Rex is so haunted by her disappearance that he sets out to discover what happened to her, regardless of the cost. A chilling love story that takes us to the heart of the perfect crime.	BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play
17 November 2010	Everything[7]	Lu Kemp	Natasha Watson, Sandy Grierson and Meg Fraser	Everything tells the story of a fourteen-year-old girl who spends 7 days in a refuge for runaways. Under Scottish law, any young person under the age of sixteen is allowed to stay in a refuge for up to seven days without parental notification.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
12 February 2011	One Night in Iran[8]	Lu Kemp	Khalid Abdalla and Maryam Hamidi	A man and a woman meet in a hotel room. They have been in love for five years but have never yet spent a night together. Tonight they meet alone for the first time. But this is Iran, and what the couple are doing is illegal. If they are caught, or even suspected, the consequences might be too terrible to contemplate.	BBC Radio 3 The Wire
28 September 2011	One Hundred and Forty Characters: Songbirds[9]	Kirsteen Cameron	Read by Robin Laing	A young man, devastated by a messy relationship break-up, finds solace in bird watching.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Reading
30 November 2011	Ancient Greek[10]	Lu Kemp	Alex Austin, Vincent Ebrahim, Sophie Stanton, Caitlin Fitzgerald and Austin Moulton	A promising student on the road to Oxbridge. A teacher on the eve of retirement. Graffiti scrawled on a school wall in a dead language. A play about education, protest and what we can expect in the future...	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play

Theatre

Stage plays written by Oliver Emanuel
Date	Title	Director	Cast	Synopsis	Theatre Company	Notes
August 2001 – 18 August 2001	Gemini[11]		Victoria Glass and Claire Davies		Stage By Stage
3 August 2003 – 25 August 2003	Iz[12][13][14]	Daniel Bye	Grae Cleugh, Nick Jesper and Andrew Patfield	We are introduced to the three former lovers of Iz, shortly after her death. The three men are also friends; and the play looks at the relationships between them, as well as their individual relationships with Iz, and their reactions to her death.	Silver Tongue Theatre / Pleasance Theatre
June 2004 –			Grae Cleugh, James Gitsham and Andrew Patfield		Silver Tongue Theatre / Tron Theatre, Glasgow
August 2006 – 28 August 2006	Shiver[15]	Daniel Bye	Kay Bridgeman and Grae Cleugh		Silver Tongue Theatre / Pleasance Courtyard
28 May 2007 – 7 June 2007			Marcia Battise		Theatre 503
6 August 2005 – 28 August 2005	Bella and the Beautiful Knight[16][17]	Daniel Bye	Grae Cleugh, Sally Kent, Nicholas Cowell	A love triangle. Two of the characters are siblings. Kiss me or kill me, sister.	Silver Tongue Theatre / Gilded Balloon Teviot
May 2006 –					Tron Theatre, Glasgow
19 May 2007 – 8 June 2007	Magpie Park[18][19][20][21]	Sam Brown	Alison Pargeter and Liam McKenna[Issue 1]	A store detective nabs a kleptomaniac and falls for her. Their affair is carried on in a hotel room where she eventually commits suicide. He gradually falls for her younger sister.	West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
August 2007 – 26 August 2007	Man Across the Way[22][23]	Daniel Bye	Grae Cleugh, Nicholas Cowell, John Milroy and Harriette Quarrie		Silver Tongue Theatre and Theatre 503
April 2008 – 11 April 2008	The Severed Head of Comrade Bukhari[24]	Daljinder Singh			Arches Theatre, Glasgow
16 April 2008 – 19 April 2008					Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
June 2008 –	Flit	Alison Peebles			National Theatre of Scotland
13 October 2008 –	Videotape[25]	Joe Douglas	Robbie Jack and Sam Young	A woman follows a man through a city, recording his every move on video, in a story about "love, loss, truth and lies, and the things we can't throw away".	Oran Mor, Glasgow
March 2011 –	One night in Iran[26]		Nabil Stuart and Amiera Darwish	Set in a luxury hotel room in Tehran, the play explores the gap between the official culture of country – where adultery remains a crime and marriage a practical family arrangement – and the inner lives and longings of a younger generation whose ideas are shaped as much by global culture as by Iranian tradition.	Oran Mor, Glasgow
21 June 2011	Henry & Ingrid: Some Words For Home			A verbatim play based on the lives of Henry & Ingrid Wuga for the Scottish Refugee Council, as part of Scottish Refugee Week.	Tron Theatre, Glasgow
2011 –	Spirit of Adventure[27]				Dundee Rep / Oran Mor, Glasgow
2012 –	Random Objects Flying Through The Air				Royal Conservatoire of Scotland / Playwrights' Studio, Scotland
2012 –	End of The World				Red Note Ensemble
2012 – 2013	Titus				Macrobert / Playwrights' Studio, Scotland / Imaginate / Edinburgh Festival Fringe	New English version of Jan Sobrie's text.
2013 –	The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish	Lu Kemp			National Theatre of Scotland	Adaptation of the book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (created by Lu Kemp and Abigail Docherty)
2013 – 2015	Dragon				Vox Motus / National Theatre of Scotland / Tianjin People's Arts Theatre, China	Conceived by Jamie Harrison, Oliver Emanuel and Candice Edmunds
2013 – 2014	The Little Boy That Santa Claud Forgot	Gareth Nicholls			Macrobert	Co-created with Gareth Nicholls
2014 –	The Adventures of Robin Hood				Visible Fictions

Short stories

• Nude^[28]

References

1. Sony Radio Academy Awards – Official site (not currently useful!)
   Sony Radio Academy Awards – Diversity website (temporary substitute)
   Sony Radio Academy Awards nominees, The Telegraph, 8 April 2010
2. UK Theatre Awards 2014 winners announced, The Stage, 19 October 2014
3. Joseph and Joseph. BBC – Afternoon Play
4. Daniel and Mary. BBC – BBC Radio Scotland
5. Elvis In Prestwick. BBC – Afternoon Reading
6. The Vanishing. BBC – Saturday Play
7. "Children in Need: Everything". BBC – Afternoon Play
8. One Night In Iran. BBC – The Wire
9. One Hundred and Forty Characters: Songbirds. BBC – Afternoon Reading
10. Ancient Greek. BBC – Afternoon Play
11. Gemini. The Scotsman, 14 August 2001
12. "Iz, Edinburgh Festival, Pleasance Theatre". Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, 22 August 2003
13. "IZ, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Festival Fringe". Mark Tyson, Culture Wars
14. Looking back, looking on. The Scotsman, 21 June 2004
15. "Shiver, Edinburgh Festival, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh". Maddy Costa, The Guardian, 18 August 2006
16. Bella and the Beautiful Knight. Thom Dibdin, The Stage, 24 August 2005
17. "Theatre: Bella and the Beautiful Knight, Tron, Glasgow 3/5". Keith Bruce, The Herald (Glasgow), 5 May 2006
18. Theatre Preview, "Magpie Park, Leeds". Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, 19 May 2007
19. "Magpie Park, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds". Alfred Hickling, The Guardian, 26 May 2007
20. Magpie Park. Kevin Berry, The Stage, 24 May 2007
21. Entertainment – Parklife. BBC – Leeds
22. Man Across The Way. The Scotsman, 9 August 2007
23. Man Across The Way. Gerald Berkowitz, The Stage, 17 August 2007
24. "Theatre: From war abroad to a war at home". The Scotsman, 10 April 2008
25. "Videotape, Oran Mor, Glasgow". Neil Cooper, The Herald (Glasgow), 16 October 2008
26. "Theatre review: One night in Iran, Glasgow". The Scotsman, 22 March 2011
27. "Theatre review: Spirit of Adventure, Glasgow". The Herald, 15 February 2012
28. Nude by Oliver Emanuel

External links

• Oliver Emanuel
• Oliver Emanuel at the Internet Movie Database

Issues to be resolved in this article

• 1. Is this link correct, or a different Liam McKenna?
• Add exact dates for Stage Plays