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Ross Smith is a British screenwriter, playwright and author, often using the pseudonyms Richard Mathews and David Hastings. He has co-written four feature films and written or co-written five stage shows. His work has been translated into 19 languages.

Early career and education

Smith began his career contributing comedy material to a number of radio and television programmes such as It’s Andy Cameron (STV), Naked Radio (BBC Radio Scotland), Naked Video (BBC 2), Alas Smith & Jones (BBC 1), The Grumbleweeds (ITV) and The Reasonably Interesting Adventures of Eric (BBC Radio 4). With his then-writing partner, Mark Green, he also wrote for Spitting Image (ITV) and Week Ending (BBC Radio 4).

Smith graduated from Ruskin College in Oxford with First Class Honours in English and Creative Writing.

Film career

Under the pen name Richard Mathews, Smith has co-written four feature films: Revenge of Billy the Kid (1992), Mumbo Jumbo (2002), Room 36 (2005) and The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby (2006).

Revenge of Billy the Kid, co-written with producer Tim Dennison and director Jim Groom, was made over four years by a young crew new to film-making. It is regarded as Britain’s first ‘wannabe’ movie. Upon release the film divided critics and audiences with its relentless scatological humour, horrific gore and outrageous storyline centred around a half-man/half-goat mutant offspring, the result of a sexual encounter between a farmer and his goat. Time Out London acclaimed the film as ‘epic trash which proves British schlock is alive and kicking’, by contrast, Martin Lacey, film critic of the Yorkshire Evening Post, promised that ‘if someone builds a bonfire with copies of this appalling film I will gladly stand by spraying petrol on the flames.’

Mumbo Jumbo, co-written with director Stephen Cookson, is a fantasy film version of Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 play, The Government Inspector, starring Joss Ackland, Brian Blessed and Richard O’Brien. For legal reasons, it has been commercially unavailable since its initial release.

Smith was then hired as Story Editor by producer/director Jim Groom to help complete Groom’s noir thriller, Room 36, during post-production. Smith and Groom restructured, re-wrote, re-shot and re-edited much of the previously shot and edited film. Room 36 was theatrically released in 2005 through Odeon cinemas in the UK. As with the pair’s previous film, Revenge of Billy the Kid, critics were split over Room 36 with the Daily Telegraph proclaiming the film had ‘a nice rough-and-ready B-movie look and there is something irresistible about the cheek of the whole thing’ while The Observer referred to it as ‘this squalid little film.’

The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby, a project originated by Smith, was a significant departure from his roots in independent, exploitation filmmaking. The 2005 family film tells the true story of a terrier who in Victorian Edinburgh kept vigil over its master’s grave for 14 years. Smith wrote the screenplay over the course of eight drafts and three years for Academy Award winning production company Oxford Films. The screenplay would later be polished by Neville Watchhurst, with director John Henderson contributing to the final draft. The $6.5 million film was produced by Piccadilly Pictures with a cast including Christopher Lee, Gina McKee, Ardal O’Hanlon and Greg Wise. Despite strong reviews and a 77 print release it failed to make an impact at the box office.

Theatre career

Under the pen name David Hastings, Smith has written or co-written five stage shows: Invasion of the Cathode Rays (1995), One Small Step (2008), The Wright Brothers (2011), Sherlock Holmes and the Crimson Cobbles (2017) and Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Fiend (2024).

Invasion of the Cathode Rays, co-written with Paul Garner, Sarah Nield, Sam Dews and Michael Cuckson, was a sketch show paying affectionate homage to 1950s popular culture. Parodying television programmes, commercials and films of the era, the show was performed with a mixture of live action, puppets and cutouts entirely in monochrome except for a brief sequence utilising red and green lighting to simulate 3D. It was staged nightly at 12.20am throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the Pleasance Attic. The show employed many of the creative talent from Revenge of Billy the Kid and Room 36 and was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 documentary First Person Plural: The Invasion of Edinburgh. Portions of the show were later performed on the Soho cabaret circuit, although a full revival has never happened.

One Small Step, produced by Oxford Playhouse, was also performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, at the Assembly Rooms. Set in an attic, the play uses 1960s junk and two actors, portraying 46 characters, to narrate the US/Soviet Space Race from Sputnik to Apollo 11 in 55 minutes. As a result of multiple five-star reviews, specifically an iconic one in The Scotsman (‘It’s hard to imagine a play fuelled by a more profound and spellbinding sense of sheer wonder’), the show sold out its run. The following year, 2009, it toured UK theatres for 10 weeks and in 2010 was the world’s most-toured British play according to the British Council when it played in 22 countries, including Australia, China, India and the US, between January and November. The play was revived in 2016 at Cambridge University and, later, on two tours produced by Oxford Playhouse: UK (2018) and UK & US (2019). It has been seen by over 35 000 people.

The Wright Brothers, again produced by Oxford Playhouse, is a one hour, two-man, prequel-of-sorts to One Small Step from the same creative team, headed by director Toby Hulse. A poetic drama, it premiered at the Singapore Arts Festival and in Oxford before a month at the Pleasance One theatre during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Although garnering solid reviews and audiences, the play did not replicate the commercial success of One Small Step and has not been revived.

Sherlock Holmes and the Crimson Cobbles is a three-person, 90 minute play adapted by Toby Hulse from Smith’s short story written whilst a creative writing student. An intertextual piece which also mixes fiction with reality, the play sees Sherlock Holmes investigating the Jack the Ripper crimes and initially deducing a man of medicine, Dr Watson, is responsible. Ultimately, however, the truth is revealed to be far more incredible. Produced by the Chipping Norton Theatre, the play toured to 22 UK towns.

Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Fiend, co-written by Smith and Hulse, is an expanded version of Sherlock Holmes and the Crimson Cobbles. With a bigger cast and half an hour longer running time, the play also introduces other celebrated literary characters into the narrative. It was first produced in 2024 by The Barn Theatre, Cirencester, and directed by Olivier-winner, Adam Meggido.

Radio career

From 1993 to 1998, Smith was a writer/researcher on 96 film-related programmes for BBC Radio. During his tenure he conducted over 300 one-on-one interviews.

Cinema 2 (BBC Radio 2) was a weekly magazine show. Smith contributed to 51 episodes, including interviews with Keanu Reeves, John Lithgow, Thelma Schoonmaker, Michael Winner, Terence Stamp, Mickey Rourke and Martin Sheen.

Steve Wright at the Movies (BBC Radio 2) replaced Cinema 2. With over 500 000 listeners, it was the UK’s highest-rated film show on radio. Smith wrote and researched 26 episodes as well as conducted many interviews, including ones with Brian Grazer, John Landis, Matthew McConaughey, Roger Corman and Gary Kurtz.

While at BBC Radio, Smith also wrote and researched three, one hour holiday specials:

Carry On Carrying On (BBC Radio 2) was the first British documentary to chronicle, film-by-film, the entire 31 film, Carry On series. New interviews recorded for the programme included ones with Barbara Windsor, Jack Douglas, Bernard Cribbens, Fenella Fielding and producer Peter Rogers. It was broadcast on August Bank Holiday Monday 1994.

For Your Ears Only (BBC Radio 2) featured new and archive interviews with many songwriters and performers of James Bond theme songs, including Tim Rice, Don Black, Monty Norman, Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney, Bond producer Michael G Wilson and five-time director John Glen. It was broadcast on New Year’s Day 1996.

In The Cannes (BBC Five Live) went behind the scenes of the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and featured interviews ranging from security guards and pornographers to Dustin Hoffman and Robert Altman. It is partly notable for a reference to anal sex, the first time the phrase was ever broadcast on the BBC on Christmas Day.

Other radio work by Smith includes The British Film Studios (BBC Radio 4), Talking Pictures (BBC Radio 4) and Everybody Down! A Tribute To Jon Pertwee (BBC Radio 2) for which he conducted a one hour interview with Pertwee.

Television

In 2023, Smith produced and presented the British Fim Institute/London Live documentary, John Kent: Lambeth Boy Forever!, a sequel to Karl Reisz’s 1958 documentary We Are The Lambeth Boys.

Books

Smith’s memoir, See You at the Premiere: Life at the Arse End of Showbiz, was published in December 2021. The book reached Number 1 on Amazon’s ‘Playwriting’ and ‘Screenwriting’ charts five days after publication and remained in the Top Ten of both charts for one month.

Unrealised film projects

Several of Smith’s commissioned screenplays have not progressed beyond either development or pre-production, including:

- Sleighride To Hell (Montage Films)

- Zombie God Squad (Montage Films)

- Blind Justice (Metrodome Films)

- Jack Frost (The Cosmic Candy Company)

- Personal Best (Oxford Films and CK Films)

- One Small Step (Oxford Films and Tiger Aspect)

- Up The Amazon With Derek & Gerry (Pigs Pictures)

- The Saucers (The Cosmic Candy Company)

- The Boy David (Armac Films)

- The Great McGonagall (CK Films)