Glenn Chandler

Glenn Chandler
Born 1949
Edinburgh, Scotland
Occupation playwright, screenwriter, novelist
Nationality Scottish
Genres crime fiction
Notable work(s) Taggart
Notable award(s) BAFTA
1991 best drama series award – Taggart

Writers' Guild Award
1993 best original drama series – Taggart

Glenn Chandler is an award-winning[1] Scottish playwright and novelist. He has written plays for theatre and radio, original screenplays for television and films, television series, and novels.[2] His best-known work is the Scottish television detective series Taggart, which is broadcast around the world.[3]

Contents

Biography

Glenn Chandler was born in Edinburgh in 1949 , and educated at the Royal High School in the city. He moved from Scotland to London and began writing for the Soho Poly, where his early plays were produced.[4] He went on to write for BBC Television and Radio, and for Granada Television (including its series Crown Court (TV series)) before creating and writing his own series Taggart for STV Productions (ITV Network).

Chandler created Taggart for STV's Controller of Drama, Robert Love, who wanted to set a police series in Glasgow. Chandler was inspired by true crime and real life, and even lifted the names of characters for the series from gravestones in Maryhill Cemetery in Glasgow.[3] The series continued even after the death of the actor Mark McManus, who played the lead role of Jim Taggart, and became the longest-running police drama on British television.[3]

Chandler has has continued to write for his first love, theatre, and has also begun a series of books featuring a Brighton detective, DI Madden.[2]

In 2008 Chandler took two plays to the Edinburgh Fringe as a producer: Boys of the Empire, a satirical play written by Chandler himself, and What's Wrong With Angry?, a drama set in 1992, when the age of consent for homosexuals was 21.,[5] Both shows were directed by Patrick Wilde, with whom Chandler shares a literary agentcy, MBA.[2]

Television Writing

Films

Theatre Writing[6]

BBC Radio

Schools Radio

Radio Drama

Books

DI Madden series

Horror fiction

Non fiction

Awards

References

External links