Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Debbie Horsfield

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on British theatre and TV writer and producer Debbie Horsfield.

Debbie attended Eccles College and studied at Newcastle University where she graduated with a BA in English Language and Literature. From there she worked at the Gulbenkian Studio and then for Trevor Nunn at The Royal Shakespeare Company.

In the early 1980’s, her first plays “Out on the Floor” and “Away from it All” were produced at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and “All You Deserve” was performed as part of an RSC Festival at the Barbican.

It was in 1983 that Debbie won the Thames Television Playwrights Award, becoming Resident Writer at the Liverpool Playhouse where she was commissioned to write the Red Devils Trilogy with the last two of these first being performed at the National Theatre’s studio in 1985. It was because of these plays that she was nominated for the 1985 Evening Standard Awards “Most Promising Playwright”.

Her foray into television happened in 1982 when she adapted her stage play “Out on the Floor” for BBC2 and wrote an episode of Crown Court for Granada Television. Over the course of the next few decades, Debbie went on to write all three season of the BBC1 drama Making Out, the 6-part series The Riff Raff Element, the 6-part Born To Run series and the 6-part serial Sex, Chips & Rock ‘n Roll.

Rolling into the 2000’s, Debbie wrote and executive produced the BBC One series Cutting It (that was based on her own sisters), the 6-part serial True Dare Kiss and the 6-part series All The Small Things.

But it is her work on the upcoming PBS mini-series Poldark, which stars Aidan Turner (Being Human and The Hobbit franchise) that will get her the most attention from an American audience. She wrote and created the series for television, adapting from the Winston Graham books.

Poldark will debut on PBS on Sunday, June 21 at 9/8c.