TV Writers Yearn for Theatre Respect???

While the majority of writing traffic seems to flow from theatre to television or film, it’s always encouraging to see the occasional reversal of direction. Ian Kennedy Martin – who, after decades of TV success with the likes of The Sweeney, The Chinese Detective and Juliet Bravo, will make his stage debut next year with The Berlin Hanover Express as part of Hampstead Theatre’s 50th anniversary season (See Today’s News) – is a case in point. And, if his experience is anything to go by, it looks like we could be in for something of a flood as more writers buck the trend and crossover from screen to stage.

Speaking to Whatsonstage.com at today’s press conference, Kennedy Martin said that he wasn’t so much “leaving television” as “television is leaving” him thanks to a gradual – but seemingly irreversible – erosion of TV writers’ rights, royalties and general respect. What’s more, he said, he was yearning to hear some “applause” with the new stage four-hander, after never experiencing a live audience response with his broadcast programmes.

The Berlin Hanover Express is produced by Hampstead in association with commercial producers Greg Ripley-Duggan and Paul Knight, who are hoping to take the Second World War-set drama elsewhere after its world premiere next March.