Matthew Baylis (born 1971), also known as Matt Baylis and M. H. Baylis, is a British novelist, screenwriter and journalist.
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Matthew Baylis | |
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Born | 1971 (age 50–51) Nottingham, England |
Other names | Matt Baylis, M. H. Baylis |
Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter and journalist |
Baylis was born in Nottingham. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and spent most of his early years in Southport, Merseyside.[citation needed]
A former storyliner on BBC One's flagship soap opera EastEnders, he adapted Catrin Collier's novel Hearts of Gold, set in the 1930s, for the screen, and this was broadcast as a two-parter on BBC One in July 2003.
He subsequently went with former EastEnders executive producer Matthew Robinson to Kenya, where he co-created, co-storylined and trained a team of local writers for a six-part drama pilot.[1] Robinson later invited him to Cambodia, to do the same on Taste of Life, a major Cambodian drama series funded by the BBC World Service Trust and the Department for International Development.[2]
Continuing his involvement in Cambodia, Baylis scripted Palace of Dreams, a BBCWST-funded romantic comedy film, aimed at younger audiences;[3] Vanished – a film-noir thriller made by Robinson's company Khmer Mekong Films, which showed to great acclaim across Cambodia in 2009, and has been shown at the Pyongyang International Film Festival;[4] and he co-created, and wrote scripts for AirWaves, a contemporary drama series funded by the U.S. government, which is currently showing on Cambodia's TV channel CTN.[5]
The author of two comic novels, Stranger than Fulham[6] and The Last Ealing Comedy[7] he has been the television critic for the Daily Express since September 2005 – where he writes as Matt Baylis – and also written on television and other subjects for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, Independent on Sunday and Daily Mail.
His third novel A Death at the Palace is a crime thriller set in Tottenham - the first in the Rex Tracey series - and it was published by Old Street on 13 March 2013.[8]
The 2013 book Man Belong Mrs Queen gives an account of his time on Tanna Island, Vanuatu, researching the Prince Philip Movement .[9] In December 2013 and January 2014 the book was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.[10]
His fourth novel, and the second in the Rex Tracey series of Haringey-set crime thrillers, is The Tottenham Outrage published on 15 July 2014 by Old Street. As well as a contemporary mystery on the streets of North London, this book presents a fact-based, but fictionalized re-imagining of the real Tottenham Outrage, a bungled robbery attempt by Russian anarchists in January 1909.[11]
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