Dave Sheasby

David Sheasby (20 September 1940 – 26 February 2010), was an acclaimed playwright, director, dramatist and radio producer who was based in Sheffield, England. He started his radio career in 1967 at Radio Sheffield as education producer and from 1988 onwards, worked for BBC Radio 4. In addition to his work for the BBC, from 2002 to 2004 he taught Media Studies and Creative Writing at University of Leeds as Royal Literary Fund fellow and taught Media Studies and Creative Writing at University of Warwick as Royal Literary Fund fellow between 2004 until his death in 2010. His work includes a number of original plays and comedies including Apple Blossom Afternoon, which in 1988 won a Giles Cooper Award, and The Blackburn Files. His dramatisations of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the 2009 dramatisation of Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel Slaughterhouse-Five were also critically acclaimed. At the time of his death, he had just completed an adaptation of J.L. Carr's novel A Month in the Country. He completed the dramatisation in a hospice bed with a borrowed laptop. It was broadcast as the Saturday Play in November 2010.

Many thanks to David W and Peter P, for contributions to this page.

 

Apple Blossom Afternoon. It's Ted's birthday and he's down the bookies as usual. As it's his 55th, he indulges in a dream bet -- an accumulator.

Coming Down. A journalist tries to get a story from a group of rock climbers holding a wake for a friend who fell to his death. (Footnote: shortly before this play was produced, Dave Sheasby was the presenter for a radio documentary about rock climbers: Hard Fire Inside, 5 Oct 1987) -Suttonelms

Showing Promise. Marjorie's creative writing course is under a bit of a threat finance-wise, so she's glad to see a new face even if Harry lacks some of the graces she's accustomed to.

Half-an-Hour Behind the Times. Members of a family look into the future. The thing is, they're life sized figures in a mechanical tableau in a tower clock. They hammer out the hours.

Shifting the Leaves. 80-year old Marjorie Beaumont takes a holiday in Cornwall to 'make sense of something'.

The Real Dennis Truelove. Dennis Truelove escapes the drudgery of his job at the bank and heads off on an adventure, hoping the police don't catch him.

Sharing Fatman. Romantic comedy at the races. Love flowers between two members of a syndicate which owns a horse, 'Mr Fatman'.

Donkeys Led By Lions. Derby schoolteacher Arthur Willis resolves to be a conscientious objector in the Great War but his decision has a devastating effect on his life and family.

The Amazing Ratman Story. An old man has a tale to tell about a piper, a mare and a town plagued with rats, but does it make good television?

Picasso and Chips. The discovery in France of a drawing of Picasso's first lover Fernande brings together small-time Rotherham art dealer Christopher Sanderson and earthy fish and chip shop proprietors Reg and Edna Mullins in an international story of intrigue and wealth.

Keeping Anne Marie. Dave Sheasby's powerful story about surrogacy tells of a woman's struggles with her conscience and her decision to carry a child for another couple.

Street And Lane. Comedy series about Johnny Street and Arthur Lane, a pair of Yorkshire builders with a white van.

Series1
Patio Marital. Street and Lane take on a patio job at the home of warring couple, Christine and Tom Rose.
Blues On The Stairs. Johnny Street and Arthur Lane, our two Yorkshire builders in a white van, are called to tackle the tricky task of a piano perilously perched on the Edwardian staircase of feisty music teacher Mrs Priam-Rhodes.
Singing Detectives. Our intrepid pair of Yorkshire builders, Johnny Street and Arthur Lane, are augmented by Tina, a glamorous young woman on work experience, as they seek out the origins of a nasty smell in a local school under the nose of caretaker and music-theatre aficionado Sidney Sanderson.
Hitting The Highs. Yorkshire builders, Johnny Street and Arthur Lane, reach new professional heights curing the leak in the penthouse roof of an Australian businesswoman who is single-handedly regenerating South Yorkshire. Specialist help comes in the form of Shafto, ex-miner turned fearless free climber.

Series 2
Ringing The Changes. Johnny and Arthur tackle a problem in a belfry.
Fade To Black. Street and Lane come across a pair of faded film stars who are not what they first seem.
Estimates Day. On their round of pricing local jobs, Street and Lane come across two mirrors, two Janets, two Riojas and one John, twice over.
Going For Broke.  Street and Lane deal with a dodgy landlord, Wittgenstein and an imminent birth.

Five Summers and Johnny Onion. A cross-Channel love story in which Anne, now in her later years, recalls a chance meeting with Michel, a young French onion seller. She tells of how this developed into a friendship and then a love affair over five summers at the end of the 1950s, with intense meetings and long winters of letters.

Incident at Boulonvilliers.  It is June 1982 and the Falklands War is drawing to a close. Three WWII veterans return to Normandy on a coach trip and are forced to confront a difficult incident back in 1944 and also their own 'heroism'.

Slaughterhouse 5. Superb dramatisation by Dave Sheasby of Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel,the book rooted in his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden during World War II. The main character in this 90-minute parable has a disability; he drifts unpredictably through time, viewing different parts of his life, not able to control where he goes. That's the point of the play; it's not really a science fiction story; it's about the helplessness felt by an individual when the world around him descends into chaos.-Suttonelms

A Month In The Country. By J.L.Carr.Dramatised by Dave Sheasby. WW1 survivor Tom Birkin spends a summer uncovering a medieval mural in the Yorkshire village of Oxgodby. Here he discovers treasures, riches he thought the war had blown away for ever.
Shortly before his death in February of 2010 Dave Sheasby sat in a hospice bed with a borrowed laptop and completed this dramatisation - a project long in the planning and dear to his heart.