MICHAEL MEARS RADIO PLAYS
Michael was born in North London in 1957 and trained as an actor at the Drama Centre, London. He has worked in many theatres in Britain and recently finished a two-year spell as a member of the RSC.
In 1991 he premiered Tomorrow We Do The Sky, his first solo play, at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.
His second solo play, Soup, about a small community of homeless people and the architect who befriends them, followed in 1995.
BBC Radio asked him to adapt and perform these two solo plays on BBC Radio 4 and then commissioned him to do three more one-act solo plays for radio - A Slight Tilt To The Left, Slow Train To Woking and Uncle Happy.
Michael Mears has had a varied career in theatre, tv and film but is best known a performer of his own original solo plays for theatre and radio. He has been described as 'the Alec Guinness of radio drama'.
BBC BROADCASTS
11.08.94 Tomorrow we do the sky
06.06.96 Soup
05.07.00 A slow train to Woking
06.07.00 A slight tilt to the left
12.10.01 Uncle Happy
23.05.03 Jam
NOTES
A SLIGHT TILT TO THE LEFT
After their father's funeral, all that remains for Matthew and
Lenny is to choose the gravestone... But from their first encounter
with Mr Nigley, the funeral director, it becomes clear that this
will be no easy task. Is there a jinx on their father that won't
let him rest in peace? (brochure copy from MM's website, Apr 02)
.........extract from VRPCC newsletter......Michael Mears wrote and performed "Slow Train to Woking" and "A slight tilt to the left" (R4, 5-6 Jul 1415). Michael Mears is unusually talented, and the writing in these and other plays by him is very sharp. Furthermore, he appears solo, but these are not monologues. Mears plays all of the voices: 28 different characters in "Slow Train", for example, where a lonely bachelor visits his ageing mother, week after week, putting up with her eccentric demands and hymn singing. "A slight tilt" is about Lenny, whose father has just died - a man obsessed by horse racing, and buried next to the local racecourse. the problem is -his father's headstone is starting to tilt. What can be done about it? Mears has made a speciality of these one-man plays, and they are of the highest quality. Readers may remember "Tomorrow we do the sky", which was performed to great acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival in 1994 and broadcast on radio 4 shortly afterwards.
Uncle Happy, by Michael Mears (R4, 1415, 12 Oct 01) was a one-man play, the author playing an amazing variety of voices as Bob Jones, a middle-aged Maths teacher, searches for an Italian ancestor he sees in an old wedding photograph. The story line was well worked out; Mears has made a speciality of these one-man productions, and readers may remember "A slight tilt to the left", "Tomorrow we do the sky" and "Slow Train", all broadcast in recent years. Enyd Williams produced, Mears doing everything else. (VRPCC newsletter, Dec 01)
Jam....2003
Mike Mears' latest play, JAM (R4, 1415, 23 May 03), starred the
author as Mervyn (and everybody else) on a hot day in summer.
Mervyn's on the way to a vital business meeting in London when
the traffic grinds to a halt. He meets an odd stranger who makes
him reassess his priorities. Mears has the ability to say pertinent
things about the way we live without being preachy about it. "Jam"
was directed and produced by Sue Wilson. ND, VRPCC newsletter,
Sep 03
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
