Stephen Wyatt

Born: 4th February 1948
Episodes Broadcast: 1987-1988

Biography

Stephen Wyatt was born in Beckenham, Kent and attended Cambridge University, where he was involved with the Footlights theatre group while completing his doctorate degree. Although he lectured in drama at Glasgow University, he was unhappy with the work and instead decided to focus on writing for the theatre. His musical revue After Shave, co-written with Nic Rowley, had a brief run in the West End in 1978. Wyatt added radio to his repertoire in 1977, and then joined the BBC's Script Unit in 1986 in an attempt to break into television. He developed a dark comedy called Claws, which was eventually broadcast in 1987 as an installment of Sunday Premiere. Wyatt circulated the script around the BBC, and it caught the attention of Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner. As a result, he wound up developing two off-beat serials for Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor: Paradise Towers in 1987 and The Greatest Show In The Galaxy in 1988. He also novelised both stories for Target Books.

Wary of being pigeonholed as a Doctor Who writer, Wyatt declined an invitation to develop a third adventure for the programme. His television work in the Nineties included episodes of Casualty and The House Of Eliot. Although he would focus on his stage and radio work following the turn of the century, Wyatt still contributed scripts to Family Affairs and Crossroads. In 2013, he co-wrote So You Want To Write Radio Drama? with Claire Grove. Wyatt's first novel, the historical comedy-drama The World And His Wife: A True Story Told By Two Unreliable Narrators, was published in 2019. The following year, he returned to Doctor Who with the Seventh Doctor audio play The Psychic Circus, a prequel to The Greatest Show In The Galaxy from Big Finish Productions.

Credits
Writer
Paradise Towers
The Greatest Show In The Galaxy

Updated 12th July 2021