Bert Coules


Bert Coules is an English writer, mainly for the BBC, who has produced a number of adaptations and original works. He works mainly in radio drama but also writes for TV and the stage.

Early years

Bert Coules worked in radio drama for ten years, gaining experience as a recording engineer, sound-effects technician, script reader and producer-director before becoming a full-time writer in 1989.
Coules began writing without any previous training, saying that he only heard a bad radio drama and felt he could do better. He wrote his first script in 1977 and had it accepted, a 45-minute docu-drama called "Wagner in Hell".

Writing career

Coules specializes in mystery and science fiction audio and radio drama, and has written a number of adaptations, most notably the Sherlock Holmes radio series starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. He also wrote original scripts for this series, including 15 'Further Adventures', each based on an unexplained reference from the original stories. These were first broadcast between 2002 and 2010, and starred Andrew Sachs as Watson, following Michael Williams' death in 2001. He has also written adaptations of several of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael novels, starring Philip Madoc as Cadfael, and of works by Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Isaac Asimov and other best-selling genre authors. He is an avowed Arthur Conan Doyle and Doctor Who fan.

Works

Original pieces include:
Dramatisations include:
In 2008 Coules appeared in a television documentary titled Decoding Cadfael which detailed the process of producing the series.