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Robert Shearman | |
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 Robert Shearman, August 2014 | |
| Born | Robert Charles Shearman (1970-02-10)10 February 1970 (age 55) Horsham, Sussex, England |
| Occupation | Author, playwright, screenwriter |
| Nationality | British |
| Genre | Fantasy,horror,science fiction,dark fantasy,absurdism,magical realism,Black comedy |
Robert Charles Shearman, sometimes credited asRob Shearman, is an English television, radio, stage play andshort story writer. He is known for hisWorld Fantasy Award-winning short stories, as well as his work forDoctor Who, and his association with Jarvis & Ayres Productions (Martin Jarvis andRosalind Ayres) which has resulted in six plays forBBC Radio 4, broadcast in the station's regular weekdayAfternoon Play slot, and one classic serial.
Shearman was educated atReigate Grammar School (where he was a contemporary ofDavid Walliams) and theUniversity of Exeter. During this time, he was regularly seen on stage at the university in various productions.
An established theatrical playwright, Shearman has worked withAlan Ayckbourn, had a play produced byFrancis Ford Coppola, and has received several international awards for his work intheatre. Award-winning plays includeFool to Yourself, which premiered at theStephen Joseph Theatre in 1997, and which won the inaugural Sophie Winter Memorial Trust Award,Easy Laughter, (Sunday Times Playwriting Award),Coupling, (World Drama Trust Award),Binary Dreamers, (Guinness Award for Theatre Ingenuity, in association with theRoyal National Theatre). In 1993 he was made resident dramatist at theNorthcott Theatre in Exeter, the youngest playwright to be honoured by the Arts Council in this way, and for them he wrote a series of plays, including his controversial comic fable about God living in suburbia,Breaking Bread Together, which later was revived in London. His association with his mentor, Alan Ayckbourn, has been particularly fruitful, withWhite Lies,About Colin, andKnights in Plastic Armour proving especially popular.
At this time Shearman was also encouraged to become a director for the theatre, largely reviving productions of his work abroad; in the 1990s he had a recurring engagement with the Teatro Agora in Rome, and, in 2007, the revival he directed of his comedyShaw Cornered, was the stand-out hit as international guest at theOld World Theatre Festival inDelhi, India. In 2010, Big Finish published seven of his better known stage plays asCaustic Comedies.
His first television work was episodes of the 1950s-set rural dramaBorn and Bred, broadcast onBBC One.
Shearman also provided the initial script for the second series of theBBC 7 programmeThe Chain Gang:Picture This. The series was awarded a Bronze in the Sony Radio Academy Awards' "The Competition Award" category.[1] A further series ofThe Chain Gang, this time calledPaper, Scissors, Stone, was a thirteen-part drama series, in which Shearman worked weekly from listeners' suggestions in shaping the story; this won a Silver at the Sony Radio Awards.
He worked as a story consultant on the 2024Apple TV+ seriesConstellation created byPeter Harness.
His association withDoctor Who began with a play written forBBV Audios,Punchline, in whichSylvester McCoy played the Dominie, a disguised version of theSeventh Doctor. This was penned under the pseudonym "Jeremy Leadbetter" (the name of a character from the popular BBC sitcomThe Good Life). Severalaudio plays forBig Finish followed,The Holy Terror,The Chimes of Midnight andJubilee all winning best audio drama in theDoctor Who Magazine polls of their respective years. He has also hadDoctor Who short stories published - his most recent being a chapter in the BBC Books novelThe Story of Martha, which was released in December 2008.
Shearman wrote the television episode "Dalek" for the 2005 series ofDoctor Who produced byRussell T Davies for theBBC. This was, at Davies' request, a re-working of the themes introduced in Shearman's earlier Big Finish audio playJubilee. "Dalek" was nominated for theHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2006, and came in second in terms of votes for its category. Shearman provided anaudio commentary for the episode on theDoctor Who – Complete First SeriesDVD box set.
In a 2021 interview, Shearman revealed he had been involved in development forSeries 5, but later departed. Head writerSteven Moffat kept up an open invitation to return, but Shearman declined, citing changes in his career and the higher profile of writers on the series.[2]
His first book, a collection of short stories calledTiny Deaths, was published byComma Press in November 2007. It was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize[3] and made the longlist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.[4] In November 2008, it was named Best Collection at the annual World Fantasy Awards.[5] In 2009, one of the stories from the book, "No Looking Back", was selected by the National Library of Singapore for the Read! Singapore campaign, ensuring the story was published separately as a mini-book and distributed all over the country in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil; the author was flown over to Singapore to give talks and interviews.
His second collection,Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, was published in late 2009. An odder, darker book than the first, it won theBritish Fantasy Award, the Edge Hill Short Story Reader's Prize - making Shearman the first writer ever to be nominated twice for this award - and theShirley Jackson Award. A special collector's edition contained "The Hidden Story"; a tale about letters found within books, each copy was handwritten by the author, and contained in envelopes within envelopes in a Russian doll effect.
In the same year,Mad Norwegian Press publishedWanting to Believe, a book by Shearman that examinesThe X-Files and its spin-off series (Millennium andThe Lone Gunmen) in a critical fashion. Also in 2009, Shearman collaborated with comedianToby Hadoke to watch and comment on every episode ofDoctor Who from the programme's debut in 1963 toDavid Tennant's final story. The resulting discussions are being published by Mad Norwegian Press in three volumes asRunning Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who.[6] The first volume, covering the 1960s, was published in 2010; the second volume, covering the 1970s, was published in 2016.
His third collection, "half short stories, half novel", was published in June 2011, calledEveryone's Just So So Special.
Shearman describes himself as a comedy writer, but it might be truer to call him an absurdist; most of his work, whatever the medium it is written for, is concerned with the effect on ordinary people when they're propelled into extraordinary or fantastical situations. His controversial early play,Easy Laughter, purports to be a Christmas domestic comedy, but eventually reveals itself to be set in analternate history where the season celebrates not only the birth of Jesus but thesuccessful extermination of the Jewish race. His WFA nominated short story, "Damned if You Don't", is at once a story about disillusioned marriage touching upon themes of what it means to beevil, but also about a man who goes toHell and falls in love with the talking ghost of Hitler's childhood pet dog, who he had unwillingly been made roommates with.
Theatre works[edit]
*Collected inCaustic Comedies. Fiction books[edit]
Critical guidebooks[edit]
| Audio plays[edit]Afternoon Play[edit]
Doctor Who plays for Big Finish Productions[edit]
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