Alan Janes

Alan Janes
Born	(1951-05-16) 16 May 1951 West Ham
Alma mater	East 15 Acting School
Occupation	Writer, producer
Notable work	Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story

Alan Janes (born 16 May 1951) is an English writer and producer who has worked extensively in TV, Films, Radio and Theatre. His best known work is the musical Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story (widely credited with being the first of the so-called ‘jukebox musicals’) which ran for over 14 years and almost 6,000 performances in London’s West End, and has been on tour in the UK for 17 years.^[1][2] Buddy has also played Broadway, 5 U.S. National Tours, 8 years in Germany, 3 years in Australia and New Zealand and countless other productions around the world^[3] leading to the show being named as ‘The World’s Most Successful Rock ‘n’ Roll Musical’.^[4][5]

Early life

Janes was born in West Ham, one of 5 children of a Jewish East End family who were originally from Russia and Poland. Janes left school at 15 and worked as a trainee cutter in an East End sweat shop by day and backstage at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at Stratford East by night. He then went on to East 15 Acting School to study stagecraft and direction. Janes was expelled at the end of his first year for taking the Acting School’s theatre lights, without permission, to light his own play which he had written and directed as part of the East London Arts Festival at the Shoreditch Town Hall.

Janes then worked in the London Docks before moving on to become assistant to Chris Stamp, the co-manager of rock group The Who. Spare time was dedicated to writing and in 1973 one of his early stage plays was taken up by the BBC and turned into an episode of Z-Cars.^[6]

Career

Following his first Z-Cars episode, Two Wise Monkeys,^[7] Janes contributed further episodes to Z-Cars; Bit Of Business; Fat Freddy B.A.,^[8] and then moved with producer Ron Craddock to write the first episodes of the ground-breaking and hard-hitting hospital drama Angels.^[9]

Janes continued to write while working at the BBC Television Script Unit and wrote many further episodes for Angels and original plays and classic series adaptations for BBC Radio including Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence, Our Man In Havana and Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, Plain Murder by CS Forester, Lord Raingo by Arnold Bennett.^[10][1]

In the latter half of the 1970’s Janes joined the writing team for the soap opera Emmerdale and in 1979 was invited by BBC head of children’s programmes Anna Home,^[11] to work with Phil Redmond, writer/devisor, and Colin Cant, producer, on the expansion of Grange Hill from its initial run to an 18 episode continuing series. He stayed writing for Grange Hill for a total of 4 series, spending more time at this fictitious school than he did at his own secondary modern school in the East End.^[12]

In the early 1980’s Janes devised and wrote the children’s series Jockey School for BBC1^[13] and wrote 3 films under the generic title of Prisoners Of Conscience for BBC2: Vladimir Bukovsky, William Beausire, and Nelson Mandela.^[14] This period saw Janes write for Minder and pen a film for David Putnam, Winter Flight, directed by Roy Battersby, and a film adaptation with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, directed by John Stephenson.^[15]

Channel 4

1980/81 saw the planning of Britain’s newest channel, Channel 4, and Janes became one of the first of the new breed of Independent Producers when he was commissioned by Mike Bolland, Commissioning Editor – Entertainment, and Jeremy Isaacs, Chief Executive, to develop, write and produce a new hard hitting comedy/drama reflecting the effects of ‘Thatcher's Britain’ on young people in the East End of London;^[16] it became the 12 episode film series Prospects, which was filmed during 1984/5 in London’s docklands and aired on Channel 4 in 1986 and repeated on ITV in 1987.^[17][18][19] Further producer credits for Janes at Channel 4 included 14 episodes over two series of the sit-com Rude Health starring John Wells and the plays Rotten Apples;^[20] It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll;^[21] The End^[22] and Positively Negative.^[23]

Buddy

A late-night fan based conversation in a London bar in 1988 with the theatrical agent Laurie Mansfield about the legendary rock ‘n’ roller Buddy Holly, led Janes to develop and write Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story, which opened at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre on 12th October 1989.^[24][2] Referred to as the first of the so called ‘Jukebox Musicals’.^[25] Buddy ran in London’s West End for over 14 years, playing 5822 performances.^[26][27] Janes took over the producing of the show himself in 2004 and Buddy has been on tour in the UK for 17 of the last 24 years and has played Broadway, 5 U.S. National Tours, Canada, Sweden, South Africa, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore, Finland, Austria and Denmark.^[28][29][30] Janes was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Musical,^[31] and internationally Buddy has received 29 nominations and awards.^[32]

Janes co-wrote and produced the soul musical 125th Street, which played at the Shaftesbury Theatre during 2002/3 and co-wrote and produced West End musical hit Jailhouse Rock, at the Piccadilly Theatre during 2004-2005.^[33][34]

Personal life

Janes married English lecturer Lynne Donovan on July 7th 1973 and they have 2 children and 2 grandchildren. He and his wife divide their time between homes in Hertfordshire and Ibiza. Janes supports West Ham United FC.

Works

TV, Film, Radio, Theatre

Sources: ^{[35][36][20][21][22][23]}

Further reading

• Griffin, Sue (13 March 1987). "Street cred behind the screen credits".  Missing or empty |url= (help); |access-date= requires |url= (help)

References