James Cary is a British television and radio writer.

Career

Cary is the creator and writer of

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...

Sony Radio Academy Awards The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academ ...

Silver Award-winning comedy series, '' Think the Unthinkable'' (four series) and lead writer on the sketch show, ''Concrete Cow''. Cary co-created and co-wrote the

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...

series '' Bluestone 42'' with Richard Hurst. He has also written for '' My Hero'', ''

My Family ''My Family'' is a British sitcom created and initially co-written by Fred Barron, which was produced by DLT Entertainment and Rude Boy Productions, and broadcast by BBC One for eleven series between 2000 and 2011, with Christmas specials broa ...

'' and co-written two radio series with comedian

Milton Jones Milton Hywel Jones (born 16 May 1964) is an English comedian. His style of humour is based on one-liners involving puns delivered in a deadpan and slightly neurotic style. Jones has had various shows on BBC Radio 4 and was a recurring guest pa ...

, as well as contributing to a number of sketch shows and children's and animation programmes. His radio comedy series ''

Hut 33 ''Hut 33'' is a BBC Radio 4 sitcom set at Bletchley Park in 1941. It includes both the writer ( James Cary) and producer (Adam Bromley) from ''Think the Unthinkable'' and ''Concrete Cow''. Production The first six-part series was recorded at ...

'' about

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

boffins, starring

Robert Bathurst Robert Guy Bathurst (born 22 February 1957) is an English actor. Bathurst was born in The Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. In 1959 his family moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland and Bat ...

and Olivia Colman, ran for three series. He has contributed to some episodes of '' Miranda'', the television version of the comedy show ''Miranda Hart's Joke Shop'' which was nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award. His script editing work includes ''Almost Never'' (CBBC), ''Recorded For Training Purposes'' (BBC Radio 4), ''Gigglebiz'' (CBeebies) and ''Mr Bloom's Nursery'' (CBeebies).

Books

In 2013 he published his first book, ''Death By Civilisation'', based on articles written for the magazine ''

Third Way The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born f ...

''. In 2014 he published a novel, ''Crossword Ends In Violence''. In 2019 he published the ''Sacred Art of Joking'' and in 2021 he published ''The Gospel according to a Sitcom Writer'' both of which provide an unlikely mix of comedy and religious commentary.

Sitcom Geek

James has been blogging and podcasting about the mechanics of writing sitcoms, in his blog Sitcom Geek since 2010, and his podcast since 2015, Sitcom Geeks with fellow comedy writer Dave Cohen.

Personal

Cary has a degree in Theology from Durham University (

Hatfield College , motto_English = Either the first or with the first , scarf = , named_for = Thomas Hatfield , established = , senior_tutor = , master = Ann MacLarnon (2017–) , undergraduates = 1010 (2017/18) , postgrad ...

). In April 2017, he was identified as one of the very few pro-

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAE ...

comedians in the United Kingdom, noting that other comedians should be wary of pointing out that people like him might be 'backward, nationalistic and patriotic and racist'.

References

British radio writers British comedians British television writers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of Hatfield College, Durham {{UK-writer-stub