TIM ROBERTS
BIOGRAPHY / STATEMENT
Like many fellow writers, I have been ‘plugging away at it’ for some time, and I could hardly be described as ‘new’ at the ripe old age of forty-five. I have had modest successes in the past both as a solicited and unsolicited screenwriter. Years ago, I attended a course at the National Film School in Beaconsfield; and I attained an MA in Radio and TV Scriptwriting from the University of Salford back in 2001, where my final screenplay for the course, Meeting Meena’s Mum, secured me an agent and I became a client of The Script Development Company in London. Meeting Meena’s Mum was optioned and became attached to names such as comedy director Dewi Humphreys and actors Dominic Monaghan and Madhur Jaffrey, and I was paid for numerous drafts of the screenplay before – as often happens in the screen trade – interest petered out. I produced more work with TSDC, including Jesus for Tea and The Runcible Spoon, which was developed by The Custard Factory in Birmingham, before becoming shelved.
Then I had a family. I’m sure you can empathise with what happened next : lots of hard work in my ‘other’ profession of teaching in order to support a young family. During these last fifteen years, (three sons – in case you were wondering), although my networking and contacts and visible successes in professional writing may have dried up, the writing itself has not. Indeed, being a father gave me life experience which fed into what I believe is some of my best writing – albeit read largely by constructively critical family and friends rather than directors and producers.
Writing drama and prose fiction has always been at the forefront of my ambitions. I have co-written ideas with a friend in the past, and have enjoyed the collaborative approach which is used in the industry – both with him and on my Salford course.
In short, I have a treasure trove of drafted novels, short stories, scripts and treatments; ideas for television series and film scripts and so on which I would be more than happy for interested parties to plunder. To name a few, Strictly Morris is an ensemble comedy drama set in the world of Morris Dancing; Spectrums is a Coming of Age bildungsroman exploring sexuality and autism based on real events in the world of computer game magazines in rural Shropshire in the 1980s; and Swings and Slides, which is one episode of a portmanteau-style drama series called The Fishcake Olympics, based in FitzCaith School in Yorkshire.
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