Alan Plater
| Alan Plater | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alan Frederick Plater 15 April 1935 Jarrow, England, UK |
| Died | 25 June 2010 (aged 75) London, England |
| Occupation | Scriptwriter |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1962–2010 |
| Genre | Television |
| Notable works |
Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt! (1976–1977) The Beiderbecke Trilogy (1985–1988) A Very British Coup (1988) |
| Spouse | Shirley Johnson (1958–85) Shirley Rubinstein (1986–2010) |
Alan Frederick Plater CBE FRSL (15 April 1935 – 25 June 2010) was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.
Plater was born in Jarrow, England, although his family moved to Hull in 1938. He attended Kingston High School.
Jarrow was much publicised as a severely economically depressed area before the Second World War (Plater joked that his family left Jarrow just after the Great Depression to catch Hull just before the Blitz). He trained as an architect at King's College, Newcastle (later the University of Newcastle), but only practised in the profession briefly, at a junior level. He later stated that it was shortly after he was forced to fend off a herd of pigs from eating his tapemeasure while he was surveying a field that he left to pursue full-time writing. Plater stayed in the north of England for many years after he became prominent as a writer and lived in Hull.
He first made his mark as a scriptwriter for Z-Cars (1962–65), along with its spin-offs Softly, Softly (1966–69) and Softly, Softly: Task Force (1969–76). His subsequent credits include The Reluctant Juggler in the series The Edwardians (1972), Shoulder to Shoulder (1974), The Stars Look Down (1975), Trinity Tales (1975), Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt!, The Journal of Vasilije Bogdanovic, the musical Close the Coalhouse Door with songwriter Alex Glasgow from the writings of Sid Chaplin, Get Lost! (1981), On Your Way, Riley (1982), The Beiderbecke Trilogy (1985–1988), Misterioso (an adaptation of his novel, 1991), Oliver's Travels (1995), an adaptation of J.B. Priestley's The Good Companions (1980) for Yorkshire Television, a film adaptation of George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Belonging and the theatre play Peggy for You, based on the life of Plater's former agent Peggy Ramsay, which was nominated in 2001 for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award.
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