Mark Wheeller

For more than three decades, Mark Wheeller has been telling the stories of real people through his pioneering work in verbatim and documentary theatre. His work has been staged thousands of times by professional and amateur companies, schools, colleges, youth theatres and drama festivals in the UK and internationally.

Too Much Punch For Judy alone has received more than 6,000 licensed performances. Other plays, including Game Over, Kindness – A Legacy of the Holocaust, Hard to Swallow and Missing Dan Nolan, have developed Mark’s approach to bringing extraordinary real-life stories to the stage. His substantial roles, strong ensemble opportunities and flexible staging have made his work equally at home with professional and amateur companies, drama festivals and educational theatre.

Through hundreds of interviews and an enduring curiosity about people’s lives, Mark came to understand that listening comes before writing. His plays invite casts and audiences to see the world through someone else’s eyes, telling real stories with honesty, empathy and humanity.

Mark’s route into playwriting was less conventional. As a teenager, he dreamed of becoming the next Ziggy Stardust and began by writing songs. To get those songs in front of an audience, he persuaded friends to build musicals around them and found himself directing the productions. When he eventually ran out of friends willing to write the scripts, he started writing those too, inadvertently discovering the creative passions that would shape his life.

The subjects of Mark’s plays range widely. Can You Hear Me Major Tom? draws on the words of David Bowie fans and guitarist Keith Christmas, while This Is For You is inspired by a Mick Ronson fan’s experience of teenage pregnancy and forced adoption, with consequences that echo forty years later. Pandemexplosion captures experiences of Covid-19 alongside the 2020 Port of Beirut explosion, while 24 Feb 22: What a Difference a Day Makes explores the effect of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the lives of ordinary people through real testimony. Across these very different subjects, Mark’s fascination remains with ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

Mark spent 36 years as a Drama teacher and youth theatre director before becoming a full-time writer. Those years continue to influence how and why he writes, as do the workshops he leads for theatres, festivals and schools in the UK and internationally.

Mark has also written about the process behind his work. Verbatim – The Fun of Making Theatre Seriously explores his approach through his own reflections and contributions from people who have worked alongside him, while The Story Behind… I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die takes readers behind the creation of one of his best-known plays. Hard to Swallow, Missing Dan Nolan and I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die have all been selected as GCSE Drama set texts.

Mark lives just outside the New Forest with his wife Rachel. After more than three decades of interviewing, writing and making theatre, he remains convinced that everyone has a story worth telling.