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Tim Firth was born, and has
lived all his life in the North West of England on the border
of Cheshire and Lancashire. He spent most of his time at his
Warrington comprehensive school writing songs and it was only
a couple of months before going to Cambridge to read English
that he attended an ARVON FOUNDATION course in West Yorkshire.
This was run by Willy Russell and whilst on it, Tim had to write
dialogue. He wrote about the only thing he knew - two sixteen
year olds trying to write a song. Another course participant
optioned it for his production company and Tim decided to become
a writer.
 In
his first year of Cambridge, Tim was inveigled into acting by
an aspirant director called Sam Mendes. His acting was not great,
and during one rehearsal, Tim confided in Sam that he'd rather
write than perform. Sam went on to direct all of Tim's plays
at Cambridge, forming  with
him a theatre company which toured variously on barges, around
rep theatres and to Edinburgh. During this time Tim was also
writing for Footlights revue team with whom he later devised
an award-winning Radio 4 series.
On leaving Cambridge, Tim was
invited to meet Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough and commissioned
to write a play for the studio theatre of the Stephen Joseph.
On hearing that the studio doubled as the theatre cafe, he wrote
a play about men putting up giant letters on the side of a building,
an environment where legitimately they'd have to shout and could
thus be heard over the noise of the cutlery. His one-act play
MAN OF LETTERS was a success and led to the commissioning
of a full-length play from Ayckbourn. This was NEVILLE'S ISLAND,
which later transferred to the West End and has been seen in
translation all round the world. The play has been in almost
continuous production, this year celebrating its tenth anniversary
with a record-breaking production at Liverpool Playhouse. Tim's
association with Ayckbourn's theatre developed over successive
plays to the point where the last play, THE SAFARI PARTY
was directed by Ayckbourn himself and transferred to the new
Hampstead Theatre. At the same time, in Spring 2003, Tim's first
musical, OUR HOUSE, with music and lyrics by Madness,
won the Olivier for Best New Musical.
At the time of NEVILLE'S
ISLAND, Tim had started to write for television and his Screen
One film MONEY FOR NOTHING, about a young lad who bets
a cheeseburger that he can be worth a million quid by the end
of his half term holiday, was screened in 1993, winning the Writer's
Guild Award. His first television series was about a group of
twentysomethings in the Territorial Army called ALL QUIET
ON THE PRESTON FRONT. It went on to run as PRESTON FRONT
for three series over the next five years winning numerous national
and international awards. Since then his work for television
has included several one-off comedy plays in a series called
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE NORTH, a version of NEVILLE'S
ISLAND produced by Judy Craymer, starring Tim Spall, and
THE FLINT STREET NATIVITY starring a whole load of people
playing themselves as five year olds. His most recent television
film was CRUISE OF THE GODS, starring Steve Coogan and
Rob Brydon and was set on a science-fiction fan cruise in the
Med.
contd.
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