About

Glenn Chandler

Writer and dramatist

 

Born in Edinburgh, Glenn ran away to London to become a writer. After a number of successful one-act theatre plays he made the big break into television with Angels for the BBC and Crown Court for Granada TV. In 1983 he created Taggart, which he then spent sixteen years writing for Scottish Television. It ran for 27 years and still holds the record of the longest-running detective series in the world.

 

Numerous true-crime screen dramas followed for Yorkshire Television until Glenn returned to theatre in 2008, taking his own production, Boys of the Empire, to the Edinburgh Fringe. Then began fifteen years of directing and producing with his own company, not only at Edfringe but at various fringe theatres in London, most notably Above The Stag, the only full-time LGBT theatre in the country. 

 

He has won numerous awards for his Edinburgh plays, including The Broadway Baby ‘Bobby Award’, and the Scotsgay Award for New Writing and Theatre. He has written four musicals, the latest of which, The Pleasure Garden, for Above The Stag, won an OFFIE (Off-West-End Award) for best new musical production.

 

He is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. His latest, Sidney Fox’s Crime, is the true story of a young gay man who was hanged for the murder of his mother. The Sins of Jack Saul, another true story, is the biography of a Victorian rent boy who scandalised London and which ran to two editions.