Philip Martin is an English television screenwriter. His early work included regular series such as Z-Cars in the late 1960s/early 70s, but his most famous work is the postmodern television series Gangsters. This was an examination of race seen through an increasingly surreal vision of Birmingham's criminal underworld. Beginning as an acclaimed one-off edition of Play for Today in 1975, it was followed by two series of 6 episodes each in 1976 and 1978. Martin appeared in the series in several roles, including as himself. His later work includes Tandoori Nights, Star Cops, Virtual Murder, several episodes of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates and Luifel & Luifel. He wrote the Doctor Who serials Vengeance on Varos and The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp. He also wrote a script called Mission to Magnus which featured the character Sil from his televised serial. That script was never filmed when the show was put on hiatus in 1985. A novelised version of the script written by Martin was released by Target Books in 1990, and a Big Finish audio drama based on the serial was released in December 2009. [More at Wikipedia]

1938 in Liverpool