Your Writing Guide
David Tomlinson
David Tomlinson spent over thirty years working as a TV scriptwriter, script editor and producer. He started with a handful of sketches on Spitting Image and The Two Ronnies; went on to write and edit shows staring Hale & Pace, Frank Skinner, Amanda Holden, and Simon Pegg; and ended up as a writer/producer at the BBC, working with writers and performers such as Ricky Gervais, Mackenzie Crook, Olivia Colman, Martin Freeman, David Mitchell & Robert Webb. While at the BBC he also ran an American style writing programme.
Outside of television, David has published a number of articles, written a short play for the Stephen Joseph Theatre (which transferred to the Bridewell Theatre in London), adapted the Leslie Thomas novel That Old Gang of Mine for Elstree Films, and a young adult version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea for Oxford University Press.
When David’s not bothering the keys on his computer, he’s worrying the strings on his guitar. As a younger man, he was signed to Village Records and has played live singer/songwriter sessions on BBC radio, and performed at theatres and festivals from North Yorkshire to Kent, including Brian May’s Wildlife Rocks Festival at Guilford Cathedral.
After an academic detour to complete an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in autobiographical writing (inspired by the medieval troubadours and the French essayist Michel de Montaigne), David is now busy on a variety of children’s animation series and a three-book-deal for the American children’s publisher 4U2B.
‘I Was Young’
A ‘bonus track’. I took a walk along Scarborough’s South Bay from the clock tower to the lighthouse, foot-stepping scenes from my youth. I imagined meeting myself in various stages from boy to teenager, and wondered if those younger versions of me would approve of the man I became.