Gareth Roberts (writer)

Gareth John Pritchard Roberts (born 5 June 1968) is a British television screenwriter and novelist, was best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who. He has also worked on various comedy series and soap operas.

Early life

Roberts studied drama at the University of Winchester (then King Alfred's College) and Liverpool John Moores University (then Liverpool Polytechnic). He has also worked as a clerk at the Court of Appeal.

Career

Roberts has worked on some of the most popular British soap operas, including Channel 4's now-defunct Brookside as a scriptwriter (1999–2003), and as a story associate on ITV's Coronation Street in 1997. In 1998 he worked as a script editor on ITV's other long-running soap, Emmerdale, moving across to write several episodes himself the following year.

Doctor Who

During the 1990s, Roberts was associated with the range of Doctor Who spin-off novels published by Virgin Books. He contributed several novels to both their New Adventures and Missing Adventures ranges of Doctor Who fiction. He also wrote some Cracker novelisations for Virgin, and a gay erotic novel named The Velvet Web under the pseudonym Christopher Summerisle, the title of which also happened to be an episode of the Doctor Who serial The Keys of Marinus.[1]

He continued his association with Doctor Who in the 2000s, penning several feature articles and comic strips for Doctor Who Magazine, co-writing audio plays and short stories based on the series with Clayton Hickman for Big Finish Productions, and in 2005 writing another Doctor Who novel, Only Human, based on the characters from the new series launched that year, for BBC Books' New Series Adventures range. A further novel, I am a Dalek, was released in 2006 and featured the Tenth Doctor. I am a Dalek is part of a Government "Quick Reads initiative". He also co-wrote The New Gods with Rebecca Levene, the first Tomorrow People audio drama for Big Finish.

Roberts appeared as a contributor to the documentary Serial Thrillers, exploring the popular Philip Hinchcliffe era of Doctor Who between 1975 and 1977, which featured as an extra on the 2004 DVD release of the serial Pyramids of Mars.[2]

On 25 December 2005 a special 'interactive' mini-episode of Doctor Who written by Roberts, Attack of the Graske, was broadcast, and can now be accessed on the BBC website (only available to UK Broadband Users). Roberts also wrote a series of "TARDISODEs", short videos available online and via mobile phones promoting the 2006 series of Doctor Who.

He has written four full episodes of Doctor Who, "The Shakespeare Code" in 2007, "The Unicorn and the Wasp" in 2008, "The Lodger" in 2010 and "Closing Time" in 2011.[3] He co-wrote 2014's "The Caretaker" with show runner Steven Moffat.

Roberts also co-wrote, with Russell T Davies, "Invasion of the Bane", the pilot episode of the Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. He wrote two two-part stories for the full series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which began broadcasting in the autumn of 2007, and another two two-part stories for the 2008 series.

Roberts co-wrote with Davies again for the second of the 2009 specials of Doctor Who, "Planet of the Dead".[4]

Gareth Roberts has also written a novelisation of Shada, the uncompleted Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor) story written by Douglas Adams, that was due to be the finale of season seventeen of Doctor Who in 1979 before it was abandoned due to industrial action. The book was published by BBC Books on 15 March 2012.[5]

Other work

In comedy, Roberts has worked in collaboration with The Fast Show writer and performer Charlie Higson on the sitcom Swiss Toni, a spin-off from The Fast Show. He also collaborated with Higson on scripts for the second series of Randall and Hopkirk for BBC One in 2001. He would reteam with Higson for the superhero-style series Jekyll & Hyde, based on the novel. It was not renewed for a second series.[6]

Roberts has also contributed sketches to the Channel Five sketch show Swinging, and wrote for the fantasy series The Librarians.[7]

Roberts and Gary Russell wrote Virgin Books' episode guide to The Simpsons, I Can't Believe It's an Unofficial Simpsons Guide (1997), under the pseudonyms Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood.[8] Text from the book's expanded edition, I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide (2000), was subsequently published on the BBC website's Cult TV section.[9]

Transgender controversy

On 3 September 2017, Roberts posted on his Twitter account, "I [love] how trannies choose names like Munroe, Paris and Chelsea. It's never Julie or Bev is it?" Later that same day he wrote "It's almost like a clueless gayboy's idea of a glamorous lady. But of course it's definitely not that."[10][11][12] These comments were condemned by some Twitter users.[12]

In June 2019, it was leaked that Roberts' contribution for a Doctor Who short story collection had been dropped due to his previous tweets, as well as the threat from other writers to withdraw their contributions. Roberts responded with a blog post on Medium in which he stated: "I don’t believe in gender identity. It is impossible for a person to change their biological sex."[13][14]

Personal life

Roberts is gay.[13][14]

Bibliography

Books

Short stories

Short stories in:

Television scripts
Production Notes Broadcaster
Emmerdale
  • Several Episodes (1999)
 ITV
Springhill
  • Multiple Episodes (1996-1997)
 Channel 4
Brookside
  • Multiple Episodes (1999-2003)
 Channel 4
Randall and Hopkirk BBC One
Swiss Toni
  • Staff Writer (2003)
 BBC Three
Swinging
  • Staff Writer (2005)
 Five
Doctor Who BBC One
The Sarah Jane Adventures CBBC
Wizards vs Aliens
  • "Fall of the Necross" (2 parts, 2012)
  • "The Curse of Crowe" (2 parts, 2013)
 BBC One
Jekyll & Hyde
  • "The Incubus" (2015)
 ITV
The Librarians
  • "And the Curse of Cindy" (2017)
 TNT

References
  1. "BBC - Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide - The Keys of Marinus - Details". www.bbc.co.uk.
  2. "BBC - Cult - Doctor Who - DVD - Pyramids of Mars". Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/episode_extras_guide/series_episode_extras_guide
  4. Chris Allen (10 June 2010). "Gareth Roberts talks 'Who', 'Sarah Jane'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  5. Doctor Who: Shada: Amazon.co.uk: Douglas Adams, Gareth Roberts: 9781849903271: Books. ASIN 1849903271.
  6. Higson, Charlie. "Sad day today as ITV announce they don't want any more #JekyllandHyde Ah well, I tried. It was a grand adventure while it lasted".
  7. Able, Sane and. "Gareth Roberts".
  8. Preddle, Jon (June 1997). "Gary Russell: From Peladon to Placebos". Time Space Visualiser. No. 51. The New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club. Retrieved 20 August 2020. I've just done my first non-fiction book, Oh No It's A Completely Unofficial Simpsons Guide for Virgin, co-authored with Gareth Roberts which has, to be frank, been more of a nightmare than it needed to be [the book was published as I Can't Believe It's An Unofficial Simpsons Guide, with Gary and Gareth writing under the pseudonyms Warren Martyn & Adrian Wood].
  9. "BBC - Cult - The Simpsons - Episode Guide Homepage". BBC Online. BBC. Archived from the original on 5 February 2005. Retrieved 20 August 2020. The information in this section comes from 'I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide' by Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, published by Virgin Books.
  10. "Doctor Who Writer Gareth Roberts Talks Vile, Ignorant Trash About Trans Women". www.themarysue.com. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
  11. "'Doctor Who' Writer Gareth Roberts Tweets Controversial Comments Online". geeks.media. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
  12. "Doctor Who writer Tweeted a transphobic comment and the internet is not having it". Gay Star News. 17 September 2017. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
  13. Flood, Alison (5 June 2019). "Doctor Who anthology drops writer over transgender remarks" – via www.theguardian.com.
  14. Roberts, Gareth (4 June 2019). "Statement on BBC Books and Transgenderism". Medium.
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