SCRIPTWRITING
Edwin Stiven has written dramas and screenplays for Radio, Television and Film.
In 1981, he joined the scriptwriting team on the daily drama serial, ‘Kilbreck’, produced by BBC Radio Scotland. He went on to write eighty-five episodes of this drama, set in a Scottish New Town, and he directed five of these in studio.
“Sea Child” (1982, BBC) is a one-hour radio play set in the Buchan fishing communities of the 1920s where superstition and religion come into tragic conflict in the tale of the young heroine, Jen.
Dominic Behan wrote of it in THE SUNDAY STANDARD, “…a small piece of fine Scots thinking comparable to Ibsen in more than just the coldness of the climate.”
“The Awkward Squad” (1983) is a radio play produced by Radio Clyde, dealing with the immediate aftermath of the death of Robert Burns, was hailed by Alison Downie of THE SUNDAY STANDARD as “…a drama of considerable poignancy and insight.”
In 1982, he wrote his first TV play for Scottish Television, ‘The Puppeteers’, a tale within a tale dealing with the tangled relationship of a couple who are rehearsing a puppet play.
In 1984, he wrote his second, the drama ‘Jess’, a version of the story of Doubting Thomas, set in the Northern Ireland Troubles. This screenplay was again produced by STV.
In the early Eighties, Eddie also wrote several short plays for the BBC Scotland’s Education Department. These were, ‘The Twa Corbies’ (the tale of the ballad), ‘The Pit’ (a piece about women miners written in collaboration with the folk musician, Dick Gaughan), and ‘Storm Ten’, a drama about a fishing boat rescue.
Eddie has also recently completed a screenplay entitled, ‘The Flame of Wrath’ which tells the story of Queen Victoria’s ‘mad’ piper, Angus Mackay.
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