Richard Harris (born 1934) is a

British television Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

, most active from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. He writes primarily for the

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

and

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...

genres, having contributed episodes of series such as '' The Avengers'', ''

The Saint The Saint may refer to: Fiction * Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint", the protagonist of a book series by Leslie Charteris and subsequent adaptations: ** ''The Saint'' (film series) (1938–43), starring Louis Hayward, George Sanders an ...

'', ''

The Sweeney ''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Ins ...

'', '' Armchair Mystery Theatre'', and ''

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, f ...

''. He has helped to create several programmes of the genre, including ''

Adam Adamant Lives! ''Adam Adamant Lives!'' is a British adventure television series that ran from 1966 to 1967 on BBC 1, starring Gerald Harper in the title role. The series was created and produced by several alumni from ''Doctor Who''. Proposing that an adventur ...

'', ''

Man in a Suitcase ''Man in a Suitcase'' is a British television private eye thriller series produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment. It originally aired in the United Kingdom on ITV from 27 September 1967 to 17 April 1968. ABC broadcast episodes of ''Man in a ...

'', and '' Shoestring''. Despite a career that has been largely spent writing for the crime and detective genre, in 1994 he won the prize for best situation comedy from the

Writers' Guild of Great Britain The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG). History The un ...

for ''

Outside Edge ''Outside Edge'' is a play written by Richard Harris about a village cricket team trying to win a game of cricket whilst sorting out their various marital problems. Plot Roger is having trouble getting a team together for the afternoons fixtu ...

'', a programme he had originated as a

stage play A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and intended for theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Reading (process), reading. The writer of a play is called a playwright. Pla ...

. Though the majority of his work has been for television, a substantial amount of his output has been for the

stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * Sta ...

Career

Harris began writing freelance episodes for British television in his mid-twenties. His first sale was to

Sydney Newman Sydney Cecil Newman (April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, Newman w ...

's 1960

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

series, '' Police Surgeon'', for which he wrote the final episode, "The Bigger They Are". Though he wrote for the initial runs of ''The Avengers'' and ''The Saint'', much of the early 1960s was dominated by his contributions to anthological mystery programmes like ''The

Edgar Wallace Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during th ...

Mystery Theatre''. His attempts at comedy in the early 1960s, largely collaborative efforts with

Dennis Spooner Dennis Spooner (1 December 1932 – 20 September 1986) was an English television writer and script editor, known primarily for his programmes about fictional spies and his work in children's television in the 1960s. He had long-lasting profess ...

, including an episode of

Tony Hancock Anthony John Hancock (12 May 1924 – 25 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor. High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series ''Hancock's Half Hour'', first broadcast on radio from 1954, ...

's unsuccessful 1963 series for ATV, failed to establish either writer in the genre. According to

Mark Lewisohn Mark Lewisohn (born 16 June 1958) is an English historian and biographer. Since the 1980s, he has written many reference books about the Beatles and has worked for EMI, MPL Communications and Apple Corps.

, their two failed pilots for ''

Comedy Playhouse ''Comedy Playhouse'' is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including ''Steptoe and Son'', '' Meet the Wife'', ' ...

'' proved the two men were really more interested in writing dramatic works. Despite his commercial failures with Spooner, he continued to collaborate with others during his early career, including ''

'' (1966), whose pilot he wrote with Donald Cotton. By the end of the decade, he had contributed individual episodes to 20 series. From the late 1960s onward, producers began allowing him to write a number of "first episodes", effectively making him co-creator of a number of projects like ''The Gamblers'' and ''Life and Death of Penelope''. Despite having turned a number of ideas into initial scripts, however, he only occasionally received on-screen credit as co-creator. This pattern is evident in two of his later shows, both adapted from literature. On ''

The Last Detective ''The Last Detective'' is a British TV comedy drama series, broadcast on ITV between 7 February 2003 and 31 May 2007, starring Peter Davison as the title character, Detective Constable " Dangerous Davies". The series is based on the "Dangero ...

'', he is recognised as having "devised the series for television". On ''

A Touch of Frost A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...

'', he is not, despite having written the entirety of the programme's first season. Beginning in about 1971, Harris turned his earlier comedic ambitions towards the stage. The majority of his comedic work, even if it later ended up film, derives from his career as a theatre dramatist. Throughout the 1970s, a new play of his would be produced almost annually. Though the frequency of his stage work slowed in later decades, his plays continued to debut into the early part of the 21st century. While the majority of his career has been spent as a freelancer, he has been an occasional

script editor A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television and radio programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas wi ...

, with shows such as '' Hazell'' and '' Hunter's Walk''. He is an intermittent

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

tist, and won the

Giles Cooper Award The Giles Cooper Awards were honours given to plays written for BBC Radio. Sponsored by the BBC and Methuen Drama, the awards were specifically focused on the script of the best radio drama produced in the past year. Five or six winners were chos ...

for adapting his television script ''

Is It Something I Said? In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulas or copulae; abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word ''is'' in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase ''was not being'' i ...

'' in 1978. One of his plays, '' Stepping Out'', has appeared in three different versions, ultimately allowing him the opportunity of a musical film adaptation released in 1991. Harris has taken a number of literary characters and adapted them into ongoing series. The longest running of these are ''A Touch of Frost'' and ''The Last Detective'', but he has also converted works including

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

's ''

The Prince and the Pauper ''The Prince and the Pauper'' is a novel by American author Mark Twain. It was first published in 1881 in Canada, before its 1882 publication in the United States. The novel represents Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. Set in 1547, ...

'' into limited-run serials. He has also converted non-English sources into English drama, including his play, ''The Last Laugh'', which derives from a Japanese work, and his adaptation of a Norwegian source into the dual-language film, '' Orions belte''. The latter won the inaugural

Amanda Amanda is a Latin feminine gerundive (i.e. verbal adjective) name meaning, literally, “she who must (or is fit to) be loved”. Other translations, with similar meaning, could be "deserving to be loved," "worthy of love," or "loved very much b ...

for Best Norwegian Film in 1985. Because Harris is a near contemporary of the Irish actor Richard St. John Harris, his writing credits are sometimes erroneously ascribed.TV.com's page
on Richard St. John Harris, which falsely attributes ''Shoestring'' to the actor.

Writing credits

Awards and nominations

References

External links

*
BBC – Comedy Guide – Richard Harris
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Richard 1934 births Living people English television writers Writers from London