Donald Cotton

Last updated 09 January 2020

Donald Cotton

Born: Thursday 26th April 1928
Died: Tuesday 28th December 1999 (age: 71)



Donald Cotton was a writer for radio and television during the black and white era. He also wrote numerous musical comedys for the stage.
Cotton's scripts for the BBC Third Programme include Echo and Narcissus (1959), The Golden Fleece and Stereologue (both 1962) and The Tragedy of Phaethon (1965, described as a comedy despite the name). In 1960, he introduced Voices in the Air, a programme whose script included work not only by Cotton but also by other notable contributors including Harold Pinter, John Betjeman, Michael Flanders, Antony Hopkins, N. F. Simpson, Donald Swann, and Sandy Wilson.After helping to create Adam Adamant Lives!, Donald Cotton mainly confined his attention to writing and performing for the stage, although he would also become a novelist and columnist. He helped Tony Snell write the satirical 1968 album Medieval & Latter Day Lays, also known as Englishman Abroad. In the Eighties, Cotton novelised both his Doctor Who serials as well as The Romans for Target Books. All three rank as the most comedic and possibly the most unusual in the book range, being told in the first person and from a broadly humorous standpoint. He also wrote a novel called Bodkin Papers in 1986.