Neil Brand - Writer
BOOKS DRAMATIC NOTES - Foregrounding music in the Dramatic Experience This book was written in response to work I had done with schools and colleges regarding music as a narrative force. Everybody has an intuitive response to music, whether they are musically trained or not, and that response is common to everybody who sits in a cinema or theatre auditorium and, at a deep level, reacts to the impetus the music is giving them. They may not be aware of the music, certainly not thinking of orchestras, instruments and musical notes, and yet that music is affecting the whole audience in the same way. Because music is, to many people, a foreign language they think they cannot speak, the debate about the use of music in our everyday lives, on TV, in cinema, in advertising, is seemingly the domain only of the musically literate - yet it is, in fact, here we all live. Dramatic Notes was an attempt to address this debate in layman's terms, featuring interviews with composers (including George Fenton, Steven Warbeck and Richard Rodney Bennett), directors (including John Schlesinger) and others involved with scoring music to drama. "A very useful and timely book…" Russell Davies, Front Row, BBC Radio 4. Pub. Arts Council of England/University of Luton Press - 1998
Also chapters in DAVID LLOYD GEORGE - The Movie Mystery (Pub. University of Wales) and YOUNG AND INNOCENT? - British Cinema in the Twenties (pub. University of Exeter)
RADIO PLAYS Neil Brand has written extensively for Radio 4, notably THE PLAYER (tx December 1996) - a journey to Scotland with Cecil B de Mille to accompany one of his movies, TALKERS (tx September 98) a story of union strife in 20s Chicago which has become the musical TALKING WITH MR WARNER; THE ART CLASS (Tx March 99) the intrigue behind the building of the first nuclear reactor; THE CAVE OF HARMONY (with Michael Eaton, tx December 2000) , the relationship between Dickens and Thackeray set against the background of the 19th century London Song and Supper clubs and BETWEEN THE LINES (tx November 2001), Siegfried Sassoon's journey through 20s England. JOANNA (tx December 2002) starred Haydn Gwynne as a piano and told the ups and downs of being a theatre piano over a hundred years. RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS - Three 11th century monks stumble upon the concept of close-harmony singing. Transmitted October 2002. THE GOOD LISTENER, tx June 2003 - Starring Hayden Gwynne and Gerard Murphy it deals with the world of covert surveillance and a meeting from the past that goes horribly wrong. And then there was STAN… (see separate section). Nominated for a Sony award. GETTING THE JOKE starred John Wood and Malcolm Sinclair and told the story of postcard king Donald McGill’s trial for obscenity in 1953, when he was 80. It was nominated for the Tinniswood prize for Best Radio Drama of 2006. SEEING IT THROUGH was a 90-minute drama for BBC Radio 3 which investigated political attitudes to war by dealing with the establishment of Wellington House, the secret British department of propaganda during WW1, and the secret involvement fo senior figures in the literary establishment. It starred Michael Maloney as Charles Masterman.
MUSICAL THEATRE After initial success with a first musical set in South London EASY MONEY (1986) and the Vivian Ellis prizewinner HOUSE OF DREAMS (1989, both written with Alison Gray) Neil has written music and lyrics for shows at theatres as diverse as Polka Childrens Theatre (including THE GIRAFFE, THE PELLY AND ME, THE FOUR FRIENDS, THE PATCHWORK QUILT, THE JUNGLE BOOK and SLEEPING BEAUTY), Nuffield Theatre Southampton (SINBAD'S ARABIAN NIGHTS, WIND IN THE WILLOWS and TREASURE ISLAND) and Gateway Theatre, Chester (ALICE IN WONDERLAND, THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET and THE LOST DRAGON). He is about to go into production on TALKING WITH MR.WARNER, (directed by Nickolas Grace, produced by Eoin O'Callaghan) a former Ken Hill prize finalist for which he has written book, music and lyrics and is based on his own radio play in which Jack Warner of Warner Brothers is kidnapped on the opening night of The Jazz Singer in Chicago (the first real talking picture) and held to ransom by a disaffected musician. Watch this space!
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