Playwright and screenwriter Alan Plater has died of cancer in a London hospice at the age of 75.

He was born in Jarrow and his family moved to Hull where he was brought up, returning to Tyneside as an architecture student at King’s College, Newcastle (later Newcastle University). He practised for some time until the broadcast of his radio play Smoke Zone persuaded him to take up writing full time in 1961.

Best known to the general public as a writer for TV, his credits include many episides of Z Cars (1962 – 78) and 30 of its follow-up Softly, Softly (1966 – 69), as well as The Beiderbecke Affair (1985), The Beiderbecke Tapes (1987) and The Beiderbecke Connection (1988), which starred James Bolam and Barbara Flynn. That trilogy centred around one of the great loves of his life, jazz, which fittingly was an important ingredient in his final play for the stage, Looking for Buddy, a co-production between the Octagon, Bolton, and Newcastle’s Live Theatre.

Other TV work included Oh No, It’s Selwyn Froggitt!, the 70s comedy series starring Bill Maynard, Fortunes of War (1987) with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) which starred Judi Dench, Ian Holm, Leslie Caron, Cleo Laine, Billie Whitelaw, Olympia Dukakis, Joan Sims and June Whitfield and was later to become a stage show, also produced and toured by the Octagon, although without the star cast. He also adapted The Barchester Chronicles and MP Chris Mullen’s novel A Very British Coup for which he won BAFTA and Emmy awards.

On the stage his biggest success was Close the Coalhouse Door, with music by Alex Glasgow, based on the short stories of NE mining writer Sid Chaplin. It premiered to great acclaim and sell-out audiences at the Newcastle Playhouse and was also successfully adapted for television.

A very political play, Coalhouse was in many ways typical of him, being firmly on the side of the working man – and, in particular, the NE working man – and mercilessly satirising the ruling classes. Satire was very much part of his work, whether merciless in Coalhouse, fused with nostalgia for a departed Tyneside in Buddy (a vegan takeaway in Wallsend!), or aimed at pretension in the workld of modern art in Charlie’s Trousers (2004).

His final television play, Joe Maddison’s War, set in Newcastle during the Second World War starring Kevin Whately and Robson Green, with a cameo appearance by Sir Derek Jacobi, will be aired by ITV in the autumn.

He was president of the Writers’ Guild from 1991 to 1994, the recipient of honorary degres from the University of Hull and Northumbria University, and was awarded the CBE for his services to Drama in 2004.

He is survived by his second wife and daughter, Janet, who is an actors’ agent in Newcastle and is married to Max Roberts, artistic director of Live Theatre in Newcastle, who has directed ten of his plays.

Taken From the British Theatre Guide

http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/news/alanplater.htm

And here’s a BBC piece on his work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10413520.stm