Creative Team

David Skynner – Director/Writer

David Skynner started his career as a runner and assistant director on films such as ‘Monty Python’s Meaning of Life’,  ‘Aliens’ and ‘A Fish Called Wanda’, then attending The London International Film School from where he graduated with a degree in the Art and Science of Film Making.  Subsequently he optioned ‘The Book of Mini Sagas’, a collection of fifty word short stories which were the product of a competition run on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme and from these he co-produced six short films based on stories by Frederic Forsyth amongst others, financed by Germany’s Telemunchen and British Screen.  These found cinema release through UIP.

Following this he moved into directing business programmes and worked successfully in this area until he wrote and directed the 35mm, 30 minute short film ‘The Euphoric Scale’, which starred Robert Bathurst, Helen Baxendale and Anita Dobson.  This accomplished film won David significant agent representation and he moved into television drama, rising quickly though productions ‘The Bill’, ‘London Bridge’ and ‘Staying Alive, until after only a few years he was offered a TV film of ‘Wuthering Heights’ for LWT and WGBH Boston.

Since then David has continued to work in a wide variety of TV productions, including ‘Streetlife’, a pilot for the BBC starring Jack Dee and John Thompson.  A comedy series ‘Dr Willoughby’, for ITV starring Joanna Lumley and ‘New Street Law’ a Manchester based legal series starring John Hannah.  During this time his work has attracted a number of award nominations.

David has continued to write and turned his hand to children’s comedy drama.  He wrote two episodes of the acclaimed CiTV show ‘The Giblet Boys’, which he also directed.  It went on to win the ‘Best Drama Bafta’ in the 2006 Children’s Bafta Awards.

David met Rad Lazar while directing an episode of ‘A&E’ for Granada TV.  Together they have written a script based on the experiences of Rad as a refugee newly arrived in the UK.  The stories were surreal and extremely funny, but also struck David as being quite singular and expressive of the often-unfounded fear people experience, when they look upon people about whom they know nothing.

Rad Lazar – Co-Writer

Rad is David’s co-writer and an Honours Graduate of the Belgrade University of Dramatic Art.  Before coming to England, he was well known in Yugoslavia as an up-and-coming young performer in the country’s major theatres. During his 6 years residence in Yugoslav Dramatic Theatre Rad performed in over 30 titles, wining a reputation with both critics and the audience. In 1993, due to political persecution and war, Rad was forced to escape Yugoslavia. In a dramatic confrontation with the ‘authorities’ of the former Yugoslavia, involving kidnapping and threats to his family, he left the theatre after his final performance hiding amongst the audience while his would-be assassin waited at the stage-door.

Rad settled in the UK and successfully restarted his acting career. Within a month of his arrival he successfully auditioned for the part of Trofimov in the Cherry Orchard, although at the time his knowledge of the English language was limited to a learned audition piece and he can now claim that he learned English from Checkov. Following a number of leading roles in theatre, Rad has built a successful acting career on TV appearing in numerous TV series, including lead roles in Space Odyssey, Prime Suspect, Silent Witness and recent collaborations with  Steven Spielberg (Munich) and Anthony Minghella (Breaking and Entering) to name but a recent few.

His collaborative work, ‘Tea Shop Asylum’, is a thematic reflection on arrival and integration in the UK culture. As Becket once said, writing in one language and finishing in another, forces the writer to understand what they are trying to say.