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Jonathan Harvey (playwright)

{{Short description|English screenwriter, actor, playwright, and author}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2015}}

{{Use British English|date=October 2015}}

{{Infobox writer

|name= Jonathan Harvey

|birth_name= Jonathan Paul Harvey

|birth_date= {{birth date and age|1968|6|13|df=yes}}

|birth_place= Liverpool, Lancashire, England

|occupation= Playwright, screenwriter, actor, author

|years_active= 1987–present}}

Jonathan Paul Harvey (born 13 June 1968) is an English screenwriter, actor, playwright and author.

Early life

Harvey was born in Liverpool, Lancashire in 1968 to Maureen and Brian Harvey.{{Citation|title=Harvey, Jonathan Paul, (born 13 June 1968), writer and playwright, since 1987|date=2016-12-01|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-276381|work=Who's Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|language=en|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u276381|isbn=978-0-19-954088-4|access-date=2019-12-17|url-access=subscription}} He has a brother, Timothy, who is a music teacher in Chester.{{cn|date=May 2025}}

Career

A former secondary school English teacher, his first serious attempt as a playwright was in 1987. He entered a competition, with a first prize of £1,000, for young writers at the Liverpool Playhouse, with his play The Cherry Blossom Tree, a blend of suicide, murder and nuns. He won National Girobank Young Writer of the Year Award for The Cherry Blossom Tree. {{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

Encouraged by this success he wrote Mohair{{cite book |last1= Dodgson |first1= Elyse |date=1990 |title= First Lines - Young Writers at the Royal Court |location= London |publisher= Hodder & Stoughton |isbn=0340522585}} (1988), Wildfire (1992) and Babies (1993), the latter won the 'George Devine Award' for 1993 and The Evening Standard's 'Most Promising Playwright Award' for 1994. In 1993, Harvey, premiered Beautiful Thing, a gay-themed play-turned-film for which he won the John Whiting Award in 1994.{{cite web |url=https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/playwrights/jonathan-harvey-iid-12351 |title=Harvey, Jonathan |work=Drama Online |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |access-date=9 May 2020 }}

In 1995 his play Boom Bang-a-Bang premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, and was originally directed by Kathy Burke. Harvey cites it as "my most comic play ever, but with some dark bits". Centred on a group of friends gathering to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, the play was a sell-out. Also in 1995 Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club was premiered. Guiding Star (1998), is a portrayal of a man's struggle to come to terms with the Hillsborough disaster, while Hushabye Mountain (1999) deals with a world that has learned to live with HIV/AIDS. Television and film works include: West End Girls (Carlton); Love Junkie (BBC); Beautiful Thing (Channel Four/Island World Productions); the 1999-2001 hit/cult comedy series starring Kathy Burke and James Dreyfus, Gimme Gimme Gimme (Tiger Aspect); Murder Most Horrid (BBC); and Coronation Street (ITV).

Harvey wrote the book for Closer to Heaven, a stage musical with songs and music written by Pet Shop Boys. Closer to Heaven ran for nine months at the Arts Theatre in London during 2001 and in Australia in 2005. In 2003, on hearing the singer-actress Abi Roberts perform, he offered to write a solo show for her. Taking Charlie was the outcome, staged at the 2004 Edinburgh Festival with Roberts starring, under the direction of Susan Tully. The piece was darkly comic and focused on the destructive nature of an insecure, 30 year-old addict.{{Cite news |work=The Independent |date=2 July 2006 |url=http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1153578.ece |title=Gay Power: The pink list |access-date=5 October 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080107115957/http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1153578.ece |archive-date= 7 January 2008 }}

Harvey's first novel All She Wants was published in 2012 by Pan Books.{{cite web|title=Pan Mac acquires debut from "Corrie" writer|date=24 January 2011|first=Charlotte|last=Williams|url=http://www.thebookseller.com/news/pan-mac-acquires-debut-corrie-writer.html|work=The Bookseller}}

Since 2013, Harvey has co-written the Radio Four sitcom series What Does the K Stand For? based on the experiences of comedian Stephen K. Amos growing up as a teenager in south London in the 1980s.{{cite web |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xd9nv|title= What Does the K Stand For?|author= |website= BBC Online |publisher= BBC | access-date= 1 February 2017 }}{{cite episode| title= Turning Cheeks | series= What Does the K Stand For?| credits= Writers: Jonathan Harvey, Stephen K. Amos; Producer: Colin Anderson| network= BBC| station= BBC Radio Four| url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03jdw6r | airdate= 27 November 2013| access-date= 1 February 2017 }} The programme's third series commenced in January 2017.{{cite episode| title= Working for a Living| series= What Does the K Stand For?| credits= Writers: Jonathan Harvey, Stephen K. Amos; Producer: Paul Sheehan| network= BBC| station= BBC Radio Four| url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08bb33b| airdate= 25 January 2017| access-date= 1 February 2017 }}

Personal life

Harvey is married to casting director Paul Hunt.

Works

=Plays=

{{div col}}

{{div col end}}

=Musicals=

=Television and film=

{{div col}}

{{div col end}}

=Fiction=

  • 2012: All She Wants, Pan Books, {{ISBN|978-0-3305-4427-6}}
  • 2013: The Confusion of Karen Carpenter, Pan Books, {{ISBN|978-0-3305-4439-9}}
  • 2014: The Girl Who Just Appeared, Pan Books, {{ISBN|978-1-4472-3846-1}}
  • 2015: The Secrets We Keep, Pan Books, {{ISBN|978-1-4472-3847-8}}
  • 2016: The History of Us, Pan Books, {{ISBN|978-1-4472-9820-5}}

References

External links

  • {{IMDb name|1281893}}

{{John Whiting Award}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, Jonathan}}

Category:1968 births

Category:English male dramatists and playwrights

Category:Living people

Category:English LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights

Category:Schoolteachers from Merseyside

Category:English screenwriters

Category:English soap opera writers

Category:People educated at Liverpool Blue Coat School

Category:English male television writers