Biography of Kevin Clarke

Photograph - Copyight: Emma Duggan. Kevin Clarke grew up in Birkenhead, Merseyside. Originally a guitarist, he wrote and directed his first play THE JACKPOT at the Finborough Theatre in 1987; as a result he was invited to join the first BBC Television Writers training course and commissioned to write for CASUALTY. His subsequent theatre play TRANSATLANTIC ran for three months at the Dramatis Personae Theater, New York and his third, CHARITY'S CHILD played the Riverside Studios. Kevin has written many episodes of television drama, including MINDER (with one episode described as "a classic" by the Daily Mail and "Arthur at the top of his form" by The Times) several for WISH ME LUCK, and for WYCLIFFE including its final one; the acclaimed twenty fifth anniversary three-part DR WHO; and three years on THE BILL, where he created the cult character ROXANNE, launching the television career of Paul O'Grady's Lily Savage in what is regarded as one of the best episodes of the series ever made. Kevin's first original comedy screenplay ALBERT AND THE LION was networked by Scottish Television in 1992. It was "an original and terrific script" according to the Evening Standard, "a farce for the western world" in The Times. Recent work includes THE INSPECTOR LINLEY MYSTERIES for the BBC ("superlatively plotted" - Daily Mail) and THE LAST DETECTIVE for Granada (which "dropped in the clues with deft regularity, kept the twists coming. . .shot through with several nice running gags" in the Daily Telegraph) both of which were Pick Of The Day selections in all national and Sunday newspapers. His first feature film screenplay shoots in the autumn: MEEK, for Scala Productions and Sprout Productions, is the true tragi-comic story of the man who started pop music in Britain in the early 1960's: Joe Meek; murderer, occultist, and the only person ever to create a string of number one hit records on home-made equipment in his living room. Rhys Ifans and Stephen Fry star, with Marc Evans to direct. Kevin has recently completed an original 2 x 90 minutes thriller for Yorkshire Television. He is currently writing a sitcom he has created for BBC television.