Richard Harris (born 26 March 1934)^[1] is a Britishscreenwriter and playwright, most active from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. He wrote primarily for thecrime anddetective genres, having contributed episodes of series such asThe Avengers,The Saint,The Sweeney,Armchair Mystery Theatre, andTarget. He has helped to create several programmes of the genre, includingAdam Adamant Lives!,^[2]Man in a Suitcase,^[3] andShoestring.^[4]

Despite a career that has been largely spent writing for the crime and detective genre, in 1994 he won the prize for best situation comedy from theWriters' Guild of Great Britain forOutside Edge, a programme he had originated as astage play.^[5][6] Although the majority of his work has been for television, a substantial amount of his output has been for thestage.

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Harris began writing freelance episodes for British television in his mid-twenties. His first sale was toSydney Newman's 1960ITV series,Police Surgeon, for which he wrote the final episode, "The Bigger They Are".^[7] Although he wrote for the initial runs ofThe Avengers andThe Saint, much of the early 1960s was dominated by his contributions to anthological mystery programmes likeTheEdgar Wallace Mystery Theatre. His attempts at comedy in the early 1960s, largely collaborative efforts withDennis Spooner, including an episode ofTony Hancock's unsuccessful 1963 series forATV, failed to establish either writer in the genre. According toMark Lewisohn, their two failed pilots forComedy Playhouse proved the two men were really more interested in writing dramatic works.^[8]

Despite his commercial failures with Spooner, he continued to collaborate with others during his early career, includingAdam Adamant Lives! (1966), whose pilot he wrote withDonald Cotton. By the end of the decade, he had contributed individual episodes to 20 series. From the late 1960s onward, producers began allowing him to write a number of "first episodes", effectively making him co-creator of a number of projects likeThe Gamblers^[9] andLife and Death of Penelope.^[10] Despite having turned a number of ideas into initial scripts, however, he only occasionally received on-screen credit as co-creator. This pattern is evident in two of his later shows, both adapted from literature. OnThe Last Detective, he is recognised as having "devised the series for television". OnA Touch of Frost, he was not, although he wrote the entirety of the programme's first season.^[11][12]

Beginning around 1971, Harris turned his earlier comedic ambitions towards the stage. The majority of his comedic work, even if it later ended up film, derives from his career as a theatre dramatist. Throughout the 1970s, a new play of his would be produced almost annually. Though the frequency of his stage work slowed in later decades, his plays continued to debut into the early part of the 21st century.

While the majority of his career has been spent as a freelancer, he has been an occasionalscript editor, with shows such asHazell.^[13]

He is an intermittentradio dramatist, and won theGiles Cooper Award for adapting his television scriptIs It Something I Said? in 1978.^[14] One of his plays,Stepping Out,^[15][16] has appeared in three different versions, ultimately allowing him the opportunity of a musical filmadaptation released in 1991.^[17]

Harris has taken a number of literary characters and adapted them into ongoing series. The longest running of these areA Touch of Frost andThe Last Detective, but he has also converted works includingMark Twain'sThe Prince and the Pauper into limited-run serials.

Because Harris is a near contemporary of the Irish actorRichard St. John Harris, his writing credits are sometimes erroneously ascribed.^[18]

Harris has adapted foreign works into English drama, suchThe Last Laugh, adapted fromKōki Mitani's 1996 playUniversity of Laughs.^[19] He also adapted the Norwegian novelOrion's Belt into the dual-languagefilm of the same name, which went on to win the inauguralAmanda for Best Norwegian Film in 1985.

• Richard Harris atIMDb
• BBC – Comedy Guide – Richard Harris
• The Playwrights Database – Richard Harris

• 1934 births
• Living people
• British male dramatists and playwrights
• British television writers
• British television show creators

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• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use British English from August 2014
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