Alan Franks

Biography

Alan Franks is a British journalist, playwright, novelist and musician, who writes for The Times and The Guardian. He is also a theatre reviewer. His black comedy, Mother Tongue, whose cast included Prunella Scales, ran at the Greenwich Theatre, London in 1992. In 2005 the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London ran his play Previous Convictions. His play Augusta was performed at the New End Theatre, Hampstead, London in 2008. His one-man play Looking at Lucian, performed by Henry Goodman as the artist Lucian Freud, ran at the Ustinov Studio, Bath, Somerset, in 2017. Franks' 2013 novel, The Notes of Doctor Newgate, is written in the form of a private diary. Reviewing the book for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard wrote that, despite the restrictions imposed by this narrative format, "Franks cleverly gets us to see Newgate from other perspectives... he can make you laugh out loud... He also achieves the considerable feat of making you nearly weep at a tender piece of poetry Newgate's father, a former miner, has written". Franks composed Wishfulness Waltz, which was recorded by Fairport Convention on their 1997 album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? and was also on Jackie Oates' 2008 album The Violet Hour. For more than two decades he performed and recorded with Patty Vetta, who previously sang with The Settlers. Franks and his wife, the journalist Ruth Gledhill, live in Kew, London. They have one son, Arthur.

Bio from Wikipedia