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Garry is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and producer. He has written for the National Theatre, leading theatres and venues across the UK, and extensively for television and radio. His television work has been seen in more than 60 countries.
From 2005 to 2020, he was director of the masters programme in writing for performance at the University of Leeds. He recently won a Writers Guild of Great Britain New Play Commission Scheme award to write a play for the city of Sunderland.
Recent work
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Blow Down
In the pandemic-hit early months of 2021, Garry researched and wrote a new stage play to mark the demolition of the iconic cooling towers at Ferrybridge Power Station near his home in Yorkshire. An online reading was presented by Theatre Royal Wakefield, and a full production directed by Tess Seddon opened to packed houses at Leeds Playhouse in February 2023 before touring.
(Video: Madaan Media. Aerial Photo: Yan Lawrence)
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Lupa
In 2022, Garry made a new departure into fantasy prose fiction for Young Adults. Lupa is a time-travel story about a mountain rescue dog who gets lost in a mist near Hadrian’s Wall during a training exercise, and finds herself outside a Roman fort in the 2nd century AD. The story was commissioned for the Hadrian’s Wall 1900 centenary event, and showcased at the Hexham Book Festival in June 2022. Press the button below to find it.
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The Last Seam
Based on stories collected from the local community, this acclaimed piece of documentary theatre marked the closure of Hatfield Main colliery, one of the UK’s last remaining deep seam mines. Produced by Cast in Doncaster, it toured Yorkshire and the North-East in 2018. Heritage Doncaster is assembling an archive of Garry’s research interviews for the project.
(Video: John Fuller)
News - August 20 2026
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News - August 20 2026 *
Garry has given a deep-dive interview about his experiences while director of the Theatre in the Mill, Bradford in the 1980s for a project to mark the venue’s 50th anniversary. He goes into the ups and downs from hosting the Royal Court’s production of Road with Ian Dury (pictured) to having his first TV play banned by the BBC. His conversation with Al Dix of 509 Arts will soon be available as part of the Eras in the Mill archive. For details go to - https://www.509arts.co.uk/eras-in-the-mill/
News - April 22 2026
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News - April 22 2026 *
Garry joins Gayle Lofthouse on BBC Radio Leeds today to talk about his play Blow Down, forgotten Yorkshire towns and his other current projects. The programme can be heard on BBC Sounds for a month - bbc.co.uk/programmes/p031tvv6
