Philip Glassborow is a playwright, lyricist and composer who writes for theater, radio and television. His best-known theater musical is the cult hit The Great Big Radio Show!

The Great Big Radio Show!

The Great Big Radio Show! is a musical comedy, with music and lyrics by Philip Glassborow. Piano arrangements and dance music are by David Rhind-Tutt. Book is by Philip Glassborow with Nick McIvor.-Synopsis:...

 (music and lyrics) with book in collaboration with Nick McIvor, which won a special prize in the Vivian Ellis

Vivian Ellis

Vivian Ellis was an English musical comedy composer best known for the song "Spread a Little Happiness" and the theme "Coronation Scot".-Life and work:...

 Awards and was premiered by the Watermill Theatre

Watermill Theatre

The Watermill Theatre is an award -winning, professional repertory theatre with charitable status. It is a converted watermill with gardens beside the River Lambourn, in Bagnor, near Newbury, Berkshire, England...

 in Newbury, showcased at the Bridewell Theatre in London, and presented by New York’s off-Broadway York Theatre Company in their prestigious “Musicals in Mufti” series.

Other theater credits include a new musical version of “Peter Pan

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...

” by J. M. Barrie

J. M. Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...

 (Watermill Theatre

Watermill Theatre

The Watermill Theatre is an award -winning, professional repertory theatre with charitable status. It is a converted watermill with gardens beside the River Lambourn, in Bagnor, near Newbury, Berkshire, England...

, Newbury and Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, Surrey presents in-house productions which often tour and transfer to London's West End. Other performances include opera, ballet and pantomime. Named after the actress Yvonne Arnaud, the company has two performance venues, a main theatre and the smaller Mill...

, Guildford) and “A Kid for Two Farthings

A Kid for Two Farthings

A Kid for Two Farthings is a 1953 novel by the British writer Wolf Mankowitz, based on the author's experiences of growing up within a Jewish community in London's East End. It was translated into a film by Carol Reed in 1955...

” (lyrics) with music by Cyril Ornadel

Cyril Ornadel

Cyril Ornadel was a British conductor, songwriter and composer chiefly in musical theatre.Cyril Ornadel was born in London. He studied at the Royal College of Music. During the 1950s he was famous for conducting the orchestra for the hit TV show The Sunday Night At The Palladium...

 and book in collaboration with Robert Meadwell, based on the novel by Wolf Mankowitz

Wolf Mankowitz

Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.-Early life:...

.

For BBC Radio, Philip compiled and presented “The Gorey Details” based on the work of Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey

Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.-Early life:...

, which starred Frank Langella

Frank Langella

-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...

, Katherine Kellgren, Andreas Brown and David Suchet

David Suchet

David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...

. He has dramatized many classic books for radio including “Billy Budd

Billy Budd

Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...

, Sailor” by Herman Melville

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....

; “Christopher Himself” based on 'Prater Violet

Prater Violet

Prater Violet is Christopher Isherwood's fictional first person account of film-making. The Prater is a large park and amusement park in Vienna, a city important to characters in the novel for several reasons. Though Isherwood broke onto the literary scene as a novelist, he eventually worked in...

' by Christopher Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...

 (which starred David Suchet

David Suchet

David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...

, Adam Godley

Adam Godley

Adam Godley is an English actor.-Biography:Adam Godley has appeared in numerous movies including Love Actually, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ....

 and Bernard Cribbins

Bernard Cribbins

Bernard Cribbins, OBE is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 is still an active...

, and featured an interview with Don Bachardy

Don Bachardy

Donald Jess "Don" Bachardy is an American portrait artist. He resides in Santa Monica, California.- Life and work :Born in Los Angeles, California, Bachardy was the life partner of writer Christopher Isherwood, whom he met on Valentine's Day 1953, when he was 18 and Isherwood was 48. They...

); “The Secret Garden,” starring Dame Joan Plowright

Joan Plowright

Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...

, Ron Moody

Ron Moody

Ron Moody is an English actor.- Personal life :Moody was born in Tottenham, North London, England, the son of Kate and Bernard Moodnick, a studio executive. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was a Lithuanian Jew. He is a cousin of director Laurence Moody and actress Clare...

 and Prunella Scales

Prunella Scales

Prunella Scales CBE is an English actress, known for her role as Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife in the British comedy Fawlty Towers and her award-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution.-Career:Throughout her long career, Scales has usually been cast...

; and “Silas Marner

Silas Marner

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is a dramatic novel by George Eliot. Her third novel, it was first published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a reclusive weaver, in its strong realism it represents one of Eliot's most sophisticated treatments of her attitude to religion.-Plot summary:The...

” starring Michael Williams, Jenny Agutter

Jenny Agutter

Jennifer Ann "Jenny" Agutter is an English film and television actress. She began her career as a child actress in the mid 1960s, starring in the BBC television series The Railway Children and the film adaptation of the same book, before moving on to adult roles and relocating to Hollywood.She...

, Alex Jennings

Alex Jennings

Alex Jennings is an English actor whose roles have included Charles, Prince of Wales in The Queen .-Early years:...

 and Edward Woodward

Edward Woodward

Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English stage and screen actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Woodward began his career on stage, and throughout his career he appeared in productions in both the West End in London and on Broadway in New York...

.

BBC TV credits include “Play Away

Play Away

Play Away was a sister programme to Play School in the UK, aimed at slightly older children. It ran from 1971 until 1984. While Play School had a more gentle, intimate feel, featuring just two presenters in a studio with the usual collection of toys and pets, Play Away was much more lively,...

”, “The Sunday Gang” and a dramatization of “The Princess Who Couldn’t Laugh” by A A Milne for Jackanory

Jackanory

Jackanory is a long-running BBC children's television series that was designed to stimulate an interest in reading. The show was first transmitted on 13 December 1965, the first story being the fairy-tale Cap o' Rushes read by Lee Montague. Jackanory continued to be broadcast until 24 March 1996,...

 Playhouse.

He has compiled and edited several music folios including “Body And Soul: The Johnny Green Songbook”, “The Jessie Matthews Songbook” and “The Laurel & Hardy Music Book”. His music and theater documentaries include “Charlie Chaplin, Composer” (which he wrote and co-presented with Josephine Chaplin); “The Gene Kelly Story” presented by Leslie Caron; and the Sony award-winning series, “Frank Sinatra: The Voice of the Century”.
Sources: Theater program for “The Great Big Radio Show!”, York Theatre Company, New York, October 2005;
Listings in Radio Times

Radio Times

Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...

Watermill Theatre

Watermill Theatre

The Watermill Theatre is an award -winning, professional repertory theatre with charitable status. It is a converted watermill with gardens beside the River Lambourn, in Bagnor, near Newbury, Berkshire, England...