Philip Goulding
Philip Goulding’s stage plays include Beneath the Waves (Eastern Angles/Colchester Mercury Theatre), Then He Kissed Me (Royal Theatre Northampton 1993, Courtyard Theatre London in association with Soho Theatre 1996), kid (Eastern Angles/Colchester Mercury Theatre), Went Down to the Crossroads (Courtyard Theatre, London), Waiting for Elvis (New Perspectives), Heading West (Forest Forge in association with Salisbury Playhouse), Different Animal (Bootleg/Hen & Chickens, London), The Belle of Bonavista Bay (Theatre Newfoundland Labrador), Wake Up Little Suzie! (Oldham Coliseum/Haymarket Theatre Basingstoke), Feels Like the First Time (Oldham Coliseum), Horse or River (Oldham Coliseum Outreach), A Fine Bright Day Today (Oldham Coliseum 2011, New Vic, Stoke 2012), Doc Faust! - A Wild West Musical (Forest Forge 2002, Maine Performing Arts Festival 2007) and Our Gracie (Oldham Coliseum/New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme). Strange Lands won 1st Prize in the International Theatre Institute Playwriting Competition 2002 and was produced by Public View Theatre Company and Giorgos Gikapeppas at the Empros Theatre, Athens in 2003 and by N1 Theatre Company at the Courtyard Theatre, London in 2005.
His stage adaptations include Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, Briar Rose, Peter Pan and The True Tales of Robin Hood (all Forest Forge), The Titfield Thunderbolt (New Perspectives 1997, Third Space 2004, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch/Bill Kenwright national tour 2005, Bruce James Productions national tour 2010, Suffolk Summer Theatres 2015, Rumpus Theatre Company 2022), Toad of Toad Hall (Forest Forge 1998, New Perspectives 1999, Eye Theatre 2001, Alberta Theatre Projects 2009), The Wind in the Willows (Basingstoke Haymarket), Hansel & Gretel (Eye Theatre), The Mayor of Casterbridge (Forest Forge/Salisbury Playhouse 1998, Wessex Actors Company 2005), The Road to Nab End (Oldham Coliseum 2010), Whisky Galore (Oldham Coliseum/ Hull Truck/New Vic Stoke, national tour 2018) and The Government Inspector or Little Local Difficulty – a new version of Gogol’s classic comedy (Forest Forge/Salisbury Playhouse 1997, Watermill Theatre, Newbury 1998, Oldham Coliseum 2003, N1 Theatre Company at the Courtyard London 2014). With playwright Richard Hurford he adapted John Gay’s play into The Beggar’s Opera Through the Ages (York Theatre Royal community play 2016).
A Fine Bright Day Today and The Titfield Thunderbolt are published by Samuel French Ltd. Whisky Galore is published by Nick Hern Books. Went Down to the Crossroads and The Mayor of Casterbridge were published in the monthly theatre magazine Plays International.
Awarded an Arts Council of England Theatre Writing Bursary in 1995 to write Strange Lands. Awarded an Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ grant in 2021 to research and develop Give My Regards to Sible Hedingham. The first chapter of Give My Regards… titled ‘Nothing Says Hollywood Like Ipswich’ was the only UK finalist in the nonfiction category of the 33rd annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize competition at the Missouri Review.
His other work includes Remaining Glimpses (joint first prize winner in the 1988 Radio Times TV Drama Awards) and Keeper (Channel 4). He was co-writer of the BBC documentary Deadliest Crash: the Le Mans 1955 Disaster (Bigger Picture Films).
His radio plays are Unexpected Vonnegut, an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s story Who Am I This Time? for BBC Radio 4, and A Fat Man Eats the Moon and The Dilemma for RTE (Dublin).
In 2015/16, with Richard Hurford, he was co-writer in residence at the National Railway Museum.
As librettist for composer Alan Edward Williams he has collaborated on: 12 Storeys High, a song cycle for soprano and solo piano (Zoe Milton-Brown/Gavin Wayte, Bridgewater Hall, 2010), the award-winning choral song sequence Divers Winged Creatures (MDR Rundfunkchor, Leipzig 2008), Wonder: a Scientific Oratorio (BBC Philharmonic/BBC Singers/Salford Choral Society 2009) and Stefan and Lotte in Paradise, a chamber opera (Media City, Salford 2012).