Lucy Gannon, MBE (born 1948) is a British playwright, television writer, and producer. She is best known for creating series such as Soldier Soldier and Bramwell.

Early life

Gannon was born to a military father. Gannon once worked as a military policewoman, a residential social worker, and a nurse, and lived in a concrete council house with no central heating. Her late husband George worked as an engineer. She later moved to a converted barn in Derbyshire and now lives near Cardigan, in Wales.

Career

Gannon's career started, in 1987, when she entered the Richard Burton Award for New Playwrights. Her play, Keeping Tom Nice, about a disabled boy whose father commits suicide, earned her the award and a six-month writer-in-residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1988 Keeping Tom Nice was shown at the Almeida Theatre in London, and in 1989 shown as a BBC TV Screenplay starring Linus Roache.^[1]

As well as creating longer series, including Peak Practice, Gannon has written several single or short run dramas for television, including Dad, Tender Loving Care, Trip Trap, The Gift, Big Cat, Pure Wickedness and The Children. In 2012 Gannon wrote the one-off BBC2 drama The Best of Men which told the story of the first Paralympic Games and starred Eddie Marsan and Rob Brydon. She was the lead writer and creator of the 2013 BBC One drama series Frankie.^[2]

In 2008 Gannon criticized the BBC, saying that delays in commissioning programmes threaten writers and producers.^[3]

In 2020, Gannon published her memoir, The Amazingly Astonishing Story. It was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2021.^[4][5] In 2022, Gannon published a writing guide, Do Drama: How to stop watching TV drama. And start writing it..^[6]

Awards

In 1996, Gannon was awarded the MBE for services to Drama, and among her awards are The Eileen Anderson Award, The Richard Burton Drama Award, the 1989-90 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize., The BAFTA Cymru, the Contribution To The Media Award (Women in Film and Television) and, most recently, the RTS Award (South West England) for Best Writer for The Best Of Men.

Works