Frances McNeil is an experienced writer from Yorkshire and has written radio plays, short stories, scripts for television and the stage, and novels. She was born and brought up in Leeds. Frances worked as a secretary in New York and London, and read English and History at York University. She returned to Leeds where she worked as a lecturer.

This page contains information about her radio work (and a mention of BBC Schools Radio, which was a hive of drama activity in pre-National Curriculum days).

The page would not be complete without information about Frances' novels, and this is shown underneath the notes on her plays. Her websites are at francesmcneil.co.uk and at frances-brody.com

Now... over to Frances, who starts by telling us about a remarkable radio producer...

"

.........ALFRED BRADLEY.........

Alfred Bradley produced a series called The Northern Drift to which I contributed sketches. That experience gave me the confidence to send my first full-length script to him.

I wrote THE SUN AND THE DEVIL after looking up an account of the Pendle Witch Trials in the British Museum reading room during a summer vacation from college. Across the years, I caught the voices. Two rival matriarchal families boasted of their abilities in the dark arts. My title came from Old Demdike. As she was losing her sight, she looked at the setting sun, and saw the devil.

The script had a huge cast. I assembled not only all those accused of witchcraft but half the population of Lancashire. Alfred asked me to cut down the number of characters and shorten the piece. My first response was to assume he was too mean to pay for so many actors – and that I couldn’t possibly cut my precious work. He was right, of course. Alfred had a clever way of coaxing a writer into improving a script. He would give hints about what you might usefully lose. He said not to take out little lines here and there, which would be removing nuts and bolts, but to look for a strand that could be cut and not missed – except by the writer! Where something was not very clear, he asked for a prose account, helping to focus the crux of the conflict.

THE SUN AND THE DEVIL was broadcast in the Monday Night Play ninety minute slot. It was produced in the old Leeds Studio 1, on Woodhouse Lane. Alfred delighted in having lots of parts for actresses. Attitudes towards women’s voices on radio had not always been so enlightened. I didn’t realize until much later how rare Alfred was in the breadth of his sympathies and encouragement.

Watching him coax good performances from actors was an education. He might say something like, ‘A lorry just went by, so if you could give us that line again. And this time …’

My only gripe about working with Alfred is that it gave me a false sense of what the world would be like. I have collaborated with other good producers, but he was special. He would travel miles to see a small scale production or rehearsed reading because some writer or actor invited him.



RADIO PLAYS

THE SUN AND THE DEVIL -1974 Monday Night Play, 90 minutes.
Producer Alfred Bradley

FLO’S GIRLS – 1979
Producer: Alfred Bradley.

MRS KLEEN 1979 – Just Before Midnight 15 minutes
Producer Kay Jamieson

BROTHER BROTHER 1980
Producer Caroline Smith

THE GREAT MAN 1982
Producer: Alfred Bradley.

THE BRIDLE PATH 1985
Producer: Alfred Bradley.

END OF TERM – 1987 Producer Caroline Raphael

THE BLISS BUSINESS 1992
Producer Kate Rowland

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS 1996
Directed by Andy Jordan Produced by Catherine Bailey

HANNA, I’LL FIND YOU 1999
Directed by Andy Jordan 



A NOTE ON SOME OF THE PLAYS

FLO’S GIRLS
Flo has three daughters. She is determined that their lives will be more successful than her own. Alfred Bradley said, ‘Flo’s the kind of woman who watches her daughter cut a neat slice of bread and expects she’ll turn into a brain surgeon’.
‘memorable characters, a funny observant story of family life’ – Yorkshire Post.

MRS KLEEN
A husband criticizes his wife for being too house-proud. Realizing the error of her obsessive ways, Freda reforms. Squalor prevails and rodents gather. Lionel moves into the garden with his tent. The Sunday Times described MRS KLEEN as ‘a clever farce.’

I wrote this script over a weekend. By the end of the week it was accepted for the Just Before Midnight slot. Within a month, it was recorded.

THE BRIDLE PATH
recreates events around a Blackburn man’s abduction of his wife in 1891 when she refused to live with him. He – and the courts – assumed he was within his rights. On appeal, law lords ruled in her favour. Jackson v Jackson became a footnote in the text books - their marital dispute having changed the law. The Clitheroe solicitor who helped with research was the son of the man who acted for Emily Jackson.

THE BLISS BUSINESS
On 3rd December, 1992 we were set to record in Manchester. Kate Rowland had her Country & Western music selections as background for this story of a family who run a bridal shop but whose lives are far from romantic. Something more dramatic was going on outside. Two bombs exploded in the centre of Manchester, injuring 65 people. Amazingly, the actors managed to make their way through the evacuated city centre - for a very late start. They were: Tracie Bennett, Eileen O’Brien, Ann Rye, Judy Brooke, and Mary Cunningham.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
tells the story of Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein. This was part of a series of plays inspired by the music scene, commissioned by Andy Jordan. Jonathan Keeble plays Epstein.

In HANNA, I’LL FIND YOU
two sisters are separated by war and betrayal. The inspiration for this came from a story told to me by an Austrian woman who, on her 70th birthday, decided she would try to make contact with an old school friend, a Jewish girl who had fled from Austria to Switzerland in 1939. Jan Ravens plays Ushi who has lost contact with her sister. Hanna does not want to be found. 



BBC SCHOOLS PROGRAMMES

An enclave of creativity was writing for BBC Schools Radio. Long before the introduction of a national curriculum, BBC Schools Broadcasting provided just such a curriculum - working with teachers to choose topics. Perhaps because the budgets were low, we were allowed to produce wonderful pieces without interference from the dead hand of bureaucracy.

I wrote twenty programmes for Schools Radio - two, three and four-part dramas and drama histories. We had great casts. Brian Blessed played Christopher Columbus. Not many radio writers receive a rave review in the Times Educational Supplement – and now I can’t find it, having moved house twice.

A particular favourite of mine was a 3-part Drama Workshop ‘The Glory Players,’ based on true events surrounding an alleged plot to assassinate Elizabeth I. The children of an arrested apothecary separately travel to see the Queen and plead his case. The boy boards a boat. His sister, dressed as a boy, joins a group of travelling players. I loved working on that story and tell myself that one day I may write it as a novel.

I also enjoyed dramatising the work of some really good children’s writers including Jan Mark, Philipa Pearce, Jane Gardam and Margaret Mahy.


Geraldine Hush produced several of my stories in Manchester. When she liked a piece, she’d say yes within the week.

Radio stories:
Waters of Kowloon Read by Ronald Harvey, produced by Herbert Smith
The Red Dress 1978 Read by Sally Gibson, produced by Gillian Hush
The Ice Skater 1979 Read by David Mahlowe, produced by Gillian Hush
Letting Go 1981 Read by Judith Barker , produced by Gillian Hush
The Invigilator 1988 Read by Rosalind Knight, produced by Gillian Hush
Getting the Medal 1994 Read by Eileen O’Brien, produced by Gillian Hush
Nickin’ Julius Caesar 1993 Read by Jane Hazelgrove, produced by Gillian Hush 





List of plays, with casts:



THE SUN AND THE DEVIL
Monday Night Play Radio 4, 90 minutes
Stephanie Turner
Kathleen Helme
Lorraine Peters
Heather Stoney
Wendy Padbury
Jane Lowe
Pamela Fairbrother
Geoffrey banks
John Franklyn-Robbins
Ronald Herdman
Paula Tilbrook
Paul Webster
Christian Rodska

THE GREAT MAN
Afternoon Theatre
Cast:
Anne Rye
Susan Tracy
Brigit Forsyth

MRS KLEEN – JBM 15 min
Kay Jamieson
Cast:
Jane Lowe
Robert McIntosh

BROTHER BROTHER
Afternoon Theatre
Judith Barker Mother
Christopher Godwin Colin
Sue Jenkins Teacher
Sean Flannigan
Brian Miller
Marian Kemmer 

FLO’S GIRLS
Kenneth Alan Taylor Mr Whizzo
Kate Lee Liz
Meg Johnson Flo
Wendy Padbury Jenny
Stephanie Turner Carol
Christian Rodska Michael/TV Man
Jenny Edwards Customer/TV Woman

THE BRIDLE PATH
Fiona Walker Emily
Russell Dixon Haughton
Sarah Neville Emma
Malcolm Raeburn Dave
Linda Gardner Isabel
Ann Rye Esther
Colin Meredith Lecturer/Dixon
Geoffrey Banks Professor/Halsbury
Simon Molloy Bertie/Fry
Paul Webster Chief Constable/Esher

THE BLISS BUSINESS
Tracie Bennett Mandy
Eileen O’Brien Carol
Ann Rye Sheila
Judy Brooke Natasha
Mary Cunningham Lydia

END OF TERM
Alan Dudley
Avril Clark
Geoffrey Beevers
Karen Archer
Richard Tate
Stephen Thorne
Susie Brann
Karen Drury
Francis Thomson 

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
Jonathan Keeble
Kerry Shale
Alice Arnold
Laurel Lefkow
Kim Wall
Ann Beach
Christopher Scott
Robert Harper
Tim Whitnall
Alex Lowe
Chris Pavlo
Elaine Pyke
Shirley Dixon
Niven Boyd

HANNA I’LL FIND YOU
Producer Andy Jordan
Jan Ravens
John Lloyd Fillingham
Lou Gish
Rachel Atkins

ND / Diversity website

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